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An Amber Alert was put out for the baby. He claimed he left home at 7 a. His alibi checked out and he was cleared as a suspect. Investigators learned that Stinnett bred and raised rat terriers. They also found out Harper spoke on the phone with her daughter at p. Stinnett had exchanged emails the night before with a woman in Fairfax, Missouri, about 20 miles from the crime scene, who wanted a puppy, and a woman was with Stinnett when her mother called.
Detectives narrowed the window of the slaying to between and that afternoon. Electronic Crimes Unit, St. Joseph PD. He found that the woman inquiring about the dogs called herself Darlene Fisher. Deeper digital analysis was done to determine more about her. At the same time, autopsy reports revealed that Stinnett had been strangled.
But the cause of death was exsanguination — she bled out from the crude c-section. Investigators believed Stinnett was unconscious after being choked but came to when the knife was plunged into her abdomen. Kate Termini, a forensic psychologist.
Montgomery, like Stinnett, raised rat terriers. Montgomery, the tipster said, gave birth the same day Stinnett was murdered. Officials searched for Lisa Montgomery and found that she lived in Melverne, Kansas, miles from Skidmore. Detectives headed out to interview her. FBI agents surveilled the Montgomery home, where a dirty small red car was parked.
The vehicle matched the description of the car seen near the crime scene a day earlier. Around 1 p. Skidmore detectives arrived on the scene a short time later. Inside the home, officials saw Lisa Montgomery seated on a couch holding a baby.
Detectives saw that the baby was breathing and took care not to alarm Lisa in any way that might cause her to harm the infant. In the last few weeks, Montgomery's defense attorneys made numerous attempts to save her life, citing her mental health and the sexual abuse she suffered as a child.
More: Lisa Montgomery, a Kansan who cut a baby from a mother's womb, faces execution Tuesday. Here is her story. Bobbie Jo Stinnett was remembered as a friendly woman who lifted people's spirits with her positive attitude. In addition to her work raising dogs, she also worked at the Kawasaki manufacturing plant in nearby Maryville. At a press conference after Montgomery was sentenced to the death penalty in , Bobbie Jo Stinnett's mother, Becky Harper, and husband, Zeb Stinnett, said they would do their best to make sure Victoria Jo had as normal a life as possible.
The girl's birthday falls on the anniversary of her mother's death. Harrison Keegan Springfield News-Leader. View Comments View Comments.
Again, red nylon carpet fibers were found on the victim's clothing. The head hair of the victim was examined and would eventually be associated with the suspect's vehicle. Even though the three jurisdictions now directly involved in the eight homicides continued to work separately on their own cases, there was continual exchange of information among these agencies, which enabled the HCSO to learn that the Tampa Police Department sex crimes detectives were working an abduction and rape of a year-old white female.
This exchange of information would ultimately lead to the big "break" in the case, a case which had completely captivated the attention of the Tampa Bay area and one which was beginning to attract national attention as well. On November 3,, a young girl, Lisa McVey, was leaving a doughnut shop in northern Tampa when she was abducted.
The offender took her to an unknown apartment and sexually assaulted her for 26 hours before releasing her. The rape victim, McVey, was extensively interviewed and recalled that after leaving the apartment where she was held, the suspect stopped at a "hour teller machine" to withdraw some money at approximately a. She described the suspect's vehicle as being red with a red interior and red carpet, with the word "Magnum" on the dash.
Enroute to the release site, the victim recalled peeking out from under the blindfold and seeing a Howard Johnson's motel as they drove up on the interstate. At this time, there were approximately 30 officers assigned to the task force. They immediately flooded the North Tampa area searching for the apartment and vehicle only a Dodge Magnum has the word "Magnum" on the dash.
A task force member was flown to the State capital and returned with a list of every Dodge Magnum registered in Hillsborough County. An examination of the computer printout of these registrations revealed Robert Joe Long's name as a listed owner of a Dodge Magnum.
Each team of detectives was assigned certain areas to search, and as one team drove to their area, they noticed a red Dodge Magnum driving down Nebraska Avenue in North Tampa. The vehicle was stopped, and the driver was told that they were looking for a robbery suspect.
The driver, identified as Robert Joe Long, was photographed and a field interrogation report was written. During the same time period, bank records for all bank machines in North Tampa were being subpoenaed. These bank records revealed that Robert Long had used the hour teller machine close to his apartment at approximately a. The rape victim identified Long as her assailant from a photo selection. Based on McVey's statements, both an arrest warrant and a search warrant were drawn up and approved by a circuit court judge.
Robert Long was located at his apartment approximately 2 hours after being stopped by the task force members. They began a hour surveillance of Long, also using aircraft to minimize the chances that Long would spot the surveillance teams. A Special Agent from the FBI Laboratory in Washington was flown to Tampa for an immediate comparison of fibers from the suspect's apartment and vehicle and to assist in the crime scene searches. An aircraft was standing by so that after the arrest this Agent could be flown immediately to the closest FDLE laboratory which had the special microscope required for comparison of the fiber samples.
The following teams were organized from the task force:. Two of these officers were selected to interview Long at the office after the arrest. After all task force teams were at their assigned locations, the signal to effect the arrest was given. By this time, Long was in a movie theater; as Long walked out of the theater, he was arrested.
This arrest occurred only 36 hours after the task force was formed. Long was returned to his apartment where approximately 10 to 15 detectives were waiting. In this jurisdiction Hillsborough County , it is preferred to serve a search warrant while the owner of the property is there to witness the search.
In this case, an embarrassed Long refused to exit the police vehicle and witness the search. Long was then taken to the HCSO operations center for interrogation. The interview was begun after the interviewing officers had consulted with the FBI Agent present who had prepared the criminal personality profile. The Agent advised that this suspect would most likely cooperate if the officers displayed both their authority and a thorough knowledge of the case.
The officers opened the interview by carefully talking only about the McVey rape and abduction until the suspect confessed to the McVey case. Then, the detectives began going into the other homicide cases. Long denied any involvement in the homicides initially. Meanwhile, the suspect's vehicle had been brought to the Sheriff's office where it was being searched. The vehicle was found to have the Vogue tire and the Goodyear Viva tire, all with the white wall inverted and in the exact location on the vehicle as had been suspected.
A sample of the carpet was removed from the vehicle, and the FBI fiber expert was immediately flown with this sample and previous fiber samples to the FDLE lab in Sanford, FL, which had a comparison microscope. A short time later, the Agent telephoned the HCSO confirming that the fibers from Long's vehicle matched the red carpet fibers found previously on the victims.
Long continued to deny committing the murders until the fibers were matched. The interviewing detectives then explained the physical evidence to the suspect. They also explained the significance of the matched fibers and what other comparisons would be done i. At this time, the suspect confessed. The suspect gave a brief description of each homicide. He admitted killing Loudenback victim 3 and using her money card.
In each case, Long had talked the victims into his vehicle, immediately gaining control of them with a knife and gun. He then bound them and took them to various areas where he sexually assaulted and then murdered them. The suspect also drew a map showing where he had placed victim number nine. They believed she fit the "victim profile" but she remained missing until Long told them where to find the body. Eventually, a total of 10 homicides which had occurred in and around the Tampa Bay area over a period of approximately 8 months were attributed to Long seefigure 3.
The victims ranged from 18 to 28 years in age, and the majority of the victims were prostitutes. Several weeks after the arrest of Long, a conference was held at the HCSO, attended by law enforcement agencies from throughout the State of Florida. The entire case was presented, and as a result, numerous rapes were cleared in the Miami area. The Public Defender's Office had attempted to obtain an injunction to prevent dissemination of information about the Long cases, but this obstacle was overcome by having this conference limited to law enforcement personnel only.
This case is a classic example of the success that can be achieved when law enforcement agencies cooperate. The following are critical areas of the investigation and how they were handled. News Media-In the past the HCSO bureau commander handled the initial press release to the media regarding the homicides.
A sergeant from another bureau was selected as a public information officer for the investigation, thus taking the burden off the bureau commander and allowing for the proper supervision of the case. In the majority of these cases, the victims were unidentified, so the HCSO released a composite and physical description to the local media.
Each call from the public was logged in as a "lead," and these leads were assigned to the detectives to resolve. It was through this method that the majority of the victims were identified. Evidence Collection and Control-The identification, collection, and preservation of physical evidence was very crucial in these cases. After the first homicide, two detectives were designated to work each scene and collect the evidence, providing a tracking of the physical evidence in each case.
Laboratory Services-The participation of the FBI Laboratory was the key ingredient to the successful conclusion of this case. Again, continuity was obtained because all the evidence went to the same laboratory. In addition, the lab became closely involved in the case; HCSO supervisors and detectives flew to Washington, DC to present the evidence from each case to the forensic experts.
When it came time for the task force to be formed, there was no question that the HCSO would be in charge. However, the task force commander had to take into account the different agencies and had to be able to blend their various responsibilities. The interview team consisted of one officer from each agency, thus the other agencies couldn't complain that they weren't involved. The one problem with this format was that "other homicides" and "persons" crimes continued, so that property detectives were handling the other "persons" crimes, since all homicide detectives were devoted to the task force.
Agency Commitment-An investigation of this magnitude cannot be successfully concluded without the total commitment of the agency and support of the chief executive. Examples of the commitment were assignment of aircraft for surveillance, reassignment of property detectives to other homicides, purchase of personal computers to catalogue all leads and suspects, and use of undercover personnel to observe the suspect after he was identified.
In addition, detectives were allowed to travel throughout the State of Florida and the United States to trace leads; there was mobilization of auxiliary personnel, realignment of patrol personnel to provide surveillance of the interstate system, and reassignment of the Selective Enforcement Unit to the Detective Division for the duration of the investigation.
As a result of laboratory examinations, numerous associations were made between the various crime scenes, the suspect, the victims, and the suspect's vehicle. The importance of the fiber evidence was apparent from the beginning, as 8 of the 10 victims were associated with Long's vehicle through fiber comparisons. The importance of the hair evidence also began to emerge as all of the forensic examinations were completed.
Six of the victims were associated to Long's vehicle through hair transfers, even though Long had thoroughly vacuumed his Dodge Magnum the day before he was arrested. Two of the 10 victims were associated directly to Long by transfer of his hairs to these victims. The signifigance of the ligatures and knots should not be overlooked as these provided a valuable link between cases.
The tire tread evidence provided many leads and would associate Long's vehicle directly to the crime scene in two of the cases. The importance of the criminal personality profile should also be noted. It cannot, however, take the place of a thorough and competent investigation. This was the trial for the murder of Virginia Johnson. The strongest evidence presented at this trial was the hair and fiber associations, as well as the confession of Long. The trial lasted a week and received a great deal of media coverage.
Long was found guilty of the murder of Virginia Johnson and was sentenced to die in the electric chair. It was decided that the first case that would be tried in Hillsborough County would be the Michelle Simms case. This case was picked due to the brutal nature in which she had been killed and the fact that it contained the strongest forensic evidence. The second case to be tried would be the Karen Dinsfriend case.
As a result of discussions between the Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office and the Public Defender's Office of Hillsborough County, a plea bargain was agreed upon for eight of the homicides and the abduction and rape of Lisa McVey. Long pled guilty on September 24, , to all of these crimes, receiving 26 life sentences 24 concurrent and 2 to run consecutively to the first 24 and 7 life sentences no parole for 25 years.
In July of , the penalty phase of the Michelle Simms trial was held in Tampa. It lasted 1 week and again received great media attention. Long was found guilty and was again sentenced to die in Florida's electric chair. Ropes and cordages were found in 7 of the 10 homicides cases. All of these were compared with another.
Even though cordages found in one case were sometimes found to be of the same type, there were no instances in which cordages from two or more different cases were found to be similar. However, these cordages and knots did provide a "link" in the patterns which would associate these cases together. Pounds and K. Smalldon, "The Transfer of fibers between clothing materials during simulated contacts and their persistence during wear," Journal of the Forensic Science Society, vol.
This is known as the "Exchange Principle of Locard" and was first published in Edmond Locard in One of the major problems in investigating a serial murder case is determining whether the murders are related. In cases where a vehicle is used, fiber evidence is probably the best type of evidence to provide this "link. Harold A. Gaudette and E. A request for a criminal personality profile can be made by any duly authorized law enforcement agency through any of the FBI's 59 field offices.
A profile can be an extremely valuable tool; however, it is intended to be a supplement and not a substitute for a thorough and extensive criminal investigation. Macrae, R. Dudley, and K. Laing and M. In view of the fact that the final two victims in this case, Vicky Elliot and Artis Wick, were not found until after the arrest of Robert Long, they will not be covered extensively in this article. Hileman — Registry. Long then went looking for a prostitute along Kennedy Boulevard in Tampa.
Long stated that he then drove approximately miles before he raped the victim. Long then talked to the victim and told her that he was going to drop her off where he picked her up. Instead, Long drove to Plant City where he attempted to strangle the victim. When that failed, he hit her head with a club and pushed her from the vehicle. Long left her on the side of the road after he slit her throat. The medical examiner stated that the cause of death could have been either strangulation, bleeding from two knife slashes in her neck, or head injuries.
Prior Incarceration History in the State of Florida:. Long confessed to eight other murders and was convicted of sexual battery in numerous other cases where the victim was not murdered. Case Information:. During the trial, testimony was presented stating that Long had suffered from a series of the following head injuries: he had been knocked unconscious for several minutes as a result from falling off of a swing; he had been knocked unconscious for approximately 20 minutes as a result of falling down a flight of stairs; he had been hospitalized for approximately one week as a result of being hit by a car at age seven; he had been knocked unconscious as a result of falling off of a horse; he had been in a serious motorcycle accident at age 20 while enlisted in the army in which he had suffered serious head injuries.
B obby Joe Long. He was sentenced to death for raping fifty women and killing nine. While he was quite young his mother left his father and took Bobby Joe to Tampa, Florida. They moved around Tampa frequently, staying with relatives or in rented rooms. He and his mother slept in the same bed until he was His mother tended to be overly protective and dramatic, but still Bobby Joe Long managed to suffer a series of severe head injuries beginning at age five, when he was knocked unconscious in a fall from a swing and had one eyelid skewered by a stick.
At 6 he was thrown from his bicycle, crashing headfirst into a parked car, with injuries including loss of several teeth and a severe concussion. At age 7, he fell from a pony onto his head and remained dizzy and nauseous for several weeks. He also seemed to have gotten into countless fist fights with relatives and classmates.
Bobby Joe Long was born with a truly unusual condition known as Klinefelter's syndrome which meant he had an extra X female chromosome causing higher amounts of the female hormone estrogen in his system. His breasts grew during puberty, which caused him great embarrassment. At 13 Bobby Joe Long met Cindy and finally began sleeping in a separate bed from his mother.
They dated for 6 years before marrying in Things went well until a serious motorcycle accident in which he suffered another serious head injury and came close to losing a leg. He claimed that after this accident he became hypersexual. His growing and desperate sexual needs seemed to consume him.
Shortly after his release from hospital Long devised the idea of using the classified ads in the newspaper to locate women, arrive at their houses and rape them. He had lots of time now that he was unemployed and discharged from the army.
Cindy never even suspected what he was up to but they did end up divorced. Dropping by while their husbands were working, Bobby Joe Long typically produced a knife, bound his victims, raped them violently, and robbed their homes before he fled. In October , Sharon Richards, who shared a house with Bobby Joe Long, accused him of rape, but the police did not have enough evidence to make a charge. Just two weeks later, Bobby Joe hit Sharon during an argument. He then took a leave of absence from Tampa and went to stay with his parents in West Virginia, returning to Tampa in June They soon became a couple.
Emma encouraged him to attend church. He in turn gave her jewelry that, unbeknownst to Emma, were stolen from his rape victims. She never questioned him about how he was able to afford these expensive gifts. Then in September , he was found guilty on the assault charges stemming from the incident. This enraged Bobby Joe and he wrote numerous letters to the judge, demanding a new trial. He claimed he had done nothing criminal and that the whole incident had been Richards' fault.
In November , Bobby Joe Long was charged with sending an obscene letter and photographs to a twelve year old girl in Tampa. Officials had traced phone calls Long had made to the 12 year old and Long received a sentence of two days in jail and six months' probation. In early , Bobby Joe Long got his retrial in the Sharon Richards case and was acquitted of the assault charges, despite the testimony of a number of witnesses against him.
As he left the courtroom he turned and laughed at her. Unsatisfied, with just rape, he strangled her to death. The serial rapist escalated to serial killer. Between May and November , Bobby Joe Long strangled, stabbed and shot at least nine victims, with a tenth suspected but never charged against him. In early November, he abducted a year-old girl off the street and raped her, then her life when she described acts of incest performed by her father.
Two days later he raped and killed one last victim, before being arrested and charged. The girl who had been spared was able to describe him and his car to police. The First Body. A couple of teenage boys walking in the early evening across a field near I, southeast of Tampa, Florida, noticed a bad smell in the air. They went closer to investigate the construction area from which it emanated and realized that the blackened thing in the weeds they were looking at was not a deer or cow but the mangled remains of a nude woman.
They ran to find their parents. Anna Flowers offers the details of what happened next in her book, Bound to Die. It was Mother's Day, May 13, The body, estimated to have lain in that spot for three days, was infested with maggots, especially around the face, which made identification difficult. She was found face down, her wrists tied together loosely behind her back around eight inches apart, and a noose draped three times around her neck.
It appeared to have been used as a leash, with a hangman's slipknot. The Florida sun and insects had done their damage. They examined the remains and saw from severe bruising that prior to her death the victim had been severely beaten.
Oddly, the rope tying her wrists was different from the rope around her neck. A white silk cloth found under the victim's face apparently was used as a gag. And there was more: The young woman's hips had been rudely broken to allow both of her legs to be pulled out at right angles to her body - a pose apparently meant for shock value. It seemed likely that she had been raped, but that was for the autopsy to determine, if possible.
At the scene, investigators soon found a set of tire tracks that led into and out of the field. They cast plaster tire impressions and noted that the front and rear right tires had a standard tread design while the left rear tire had an unusual tread design.
That could be helpful in the apprehension of the offender. Medical examiner Charles Digg performed the autopsy and stated the cause of death as best he could tell as strangulation. He confirmed that the victim had been raped. It was difficult to tell her race or age, but he thought she might have been Asian. In a move that was unusual for him, Capt. Terry contacted special agent Michael P.
Malone, a fiber analyst at the FBI lab, who agreed to examine the evidence. Malone located a red trilobal nylon fiber on the scarf and concluded that it was probably from a type of cheap carpeting used in an automobile - perhaps the one that had transported the victim to the dump site.
This incident did not get much press. A missing persons report on a young Asian female, filed by John Corcoran, appeared to match the victim's physical features. She was 20 years old and had worked as a dancer at the Sly Fox Lounge in Tampa. Investigators discovered that she was a drug addict. She had also been trying to raise money to return to her family in California. They assumed that she may have been asking men who liked watching her to give her money and had met the wrong person at the wrong time.
In addition, because she had no car, she often looked for rides. Long was last seen leaving a bar called CC's. Her boyfriend was briefly a suspect, but his alibi checked out. At this point, Lana Long was just one of a number of unfortunate girls getting murdered in the Tampa area.
No one thought much about it, but within two weeks, her status had changed. The psychology of a serial killer. A construction worker came across another female body on May 27, , in a lover's lane near Plant City north of I-4 in Hillsborough County. Officials from HCSO arrived to examine the scene, and they soon realized this one was oddly familiar. The mostly nude woman was on her back, clad in a green T-shirt which had been ripped up the front and pulled back, leaving her arms in the sleeves to bind them.
Her wrists had been tied behind her back also loosely , and once again a rope had been wound three times around her neck. Like the crime two weeks earlier, the ropes used to bind her and to strangle her were different types. The leash-like rope around the neck had been partially cut by a knife, possibly with the same weapon used to cut her neck and cheeks.
Among her most serious wounds was a wide slicing cut to the neck almost a foot long that had severed a large blood vessel, and she had a massive blunt trauma injury over her left ear. So she was stabbed, strangled, and beaten to death. Whoever had done this was shockingly brutal. While this victim wore next to nothing, a bloodstained white jumper and white pantyhose were found hanging from a tree limb and were assumed to have been hers.
There were also trace items of note: on the victim's body was a reddish fiber, lying near her left breast, as well as several strands of hair on her stomach and under her right hand. These had to be analyzed along with whatever was under her fingernails. Prints were evident at the scene: tire tracks and even a barefoot print found in mud. Plaster casts were made of all of these impressions, one of which contained a clear "V" along with more indistinct letters.
This time they had found the victim more quickly: She was estimated to have been dead for about 12 hours. The autopsy revealed that her skull had received five brutal blows and that she had been strangled at or near the time of death. She also had been raped. The official cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation and severe head injuries.
Ward describes the news item that accompanied a composite drawing of this Jane Doe, offering identifiers such as being in her late teens, 5-foot 5-inches tall, pounds, with dark brown hair and eyes. The faster they IDed her, the better it would be for their investigation. She turned out to be a prostitute. The victim was identified by another girl working the streets as Michelle Denise Simms, a year-old with a drug habit. Having been in the city only two days, she was last seen talking to two white men near Kennedy Boulevard.
Her high-risk lifestyle had made her easy pickings, as well as throwing up hurdles to solving her murder. Random killings were always more difficult. Special Agent Malone also examined the Simms case evidence and noted clear similarities. There were good matches between the tire impressions from both scenes, so the casts were sent to an expert in Ohio, according to Ward. He said that the right rear tire was a Goodyear Viva tire, while the left rear was a Vogue Tyre, an expensive tire exclusive to Cadillacs.
This kind of individualizing evidence would definitely help if they ever identified a suspect. There was also a close match on the fiber evidence. The red trilobal fiber found on both bodies indicated that these two women had a killer in common. Malone also found a second type of red fiber in the Simms case, a delustored red trilobal fiber, which indicated that the associated vehicle probably contained two different types of carpet fibers.
One more important clue emerged: Semen stains found on Simms' clothing indicated that the killer had an AB blood type. The hairs found on Simms were 8-inch-long, brown cranial hairs identified as Caucasian. They did not belong to her. Since the FBI was already involved via the fiber analysis, it was but a short step to get the Behavioral Science Unit interested in the possibility of getting in on a serial killer case before it escalated.
No one then had any idea that they'd already been looking for this man as a notorious rapist. On June 2, the press ran a news report that indicated how seriously they were taking this investigation. HCSO sent a summary of the common factors from the crime scenes to the BSU, and agents there worked up a profile of the killer's probable background and personality traits.
Flowers indicates that this occurred after the second victim, while Ward shows it after the fourth. Ward offers a retired agent's discussion of the various profile points, but Flowers reproduces the entire profile:. The agents thought the factors from both cases that were most important to their analysis were:. From these facts, it was clear that the killer was mobile and probably had or borrowed a vehicle.
The leash-like ropes around the necks and the brutal beatings that exceeded what was necessary to kill them showed a certain deviance. It seemed more likely that the victims had been randomly selected because they were easy prey than that they were known to the killer. He was deemed to be a white male, in his mids, gregarious, extroverted, and manipulative. In general, he seemed to be what they classify as "organized.
Being narcissistic, he would want to be the center of attention. He would also be impulsive, albeit not sufficiently so to risk being caught. It was likely that he lied easily and had a macho self-image. He might even have tattoos to that effect, and carry a weapon as a statement of his manhood. At best, he'd have a high school education.
If he'd even tried college, it was likely that he'd had trouble adjusting to the discipline and would have dropped out. He would be intelligent but have issues with authority. He may have been truant and disruptive. In keeping with his self-image, he would probably take masculine jobs or a job where his manipulative skills would be useful. He probably had difficulty holding down a job and would have had multiple short-term employments.
As a child, he probably was delinquent and difficult to control, and exhibited resentment toward efforts to impose discipline. He may have a history of bedwetting, arson, and animal cruelty. If he had served in the military, he would have joined a masculine unit, such as the Marine Corps. Even here, his issues with authority would have gotten him into confrontations. On the issue of relationships, and in the tradition of organized killers, he probably would have a woman in his life. He would date regularly, but not have long-term commitments.
He would brag about his sexual exploits, and probably date younger women. If married, he would be unfaithful, and his chosen type of woman would be dependent and easily controlled. His car of choice would be flashy, like a sports car. It was also likely that he would have a prison record, or some record of problems with the law. Prior to these murders, he may have committed neighborhood crimes, such as voyeurism or burglary. Yet if he was ever in jail, he would have been a model albeit manipulative prisoner.
In these crimes, he was sadistic: he probably used some scheme to lure the women into his car, and then proceeded to torture them mentally and physically, keeping them alive for some period of time. He would leave little or no evidence behind. In all likelihood, he would kill again. He could be a police buff.
After the crime, he may return to the scene of the crime and participate in the investigation - both to deflect the investigators and to relive the experience. He would continue his lifestyle without change after the crime. On the anniversaries, as a way to relive his pleasure, he might contact the victims' family members, the police, or the media to gloat.
In addition to personality traits and probably background, the profilers also offered recommendations for interrogating a suspect, should they make an arrest. They suggested that whoever interrogates him know the facts of the case well, and ask questions with confidence. He should dress formally and appear to be a figure of authority, fully in control and not easily manipulated.
He can demonstrate this by dropping facts from the crimes in a timed manner to give the killer the impression "that his entire background is known. Serial Killer at Large. On June 8, , Elizabeth Loudenback, 22, a shy girl who worked on an assembly line, had gone for a walk from the mobile park where she lived, but never returned.
He mother reported her missing. It took more than two weeks before her body was found on a Sunday morning in an orange grove, severely decomposed. Ward says that she was nearly liquefied. Unlike the earlier two victims, she was fully clothed, but her hyoid bone was broken, indicating death by strangulation. Since there were no ropes at this scene and no interstate nearby, she was not immediately linked to the serial killer. She was also not a prostitute, drug addict, hitch-hiker, nor dancer.
Only later would her clothing be checked and found to yield the same two types of red fibers that would link her case to the others. At this time, she was considered merely the victim of a random murder, possibly a copy-cat to the others. There was a hiatus of several months before more victims were linked to this killer:. The fourth set of remains was found on October 7, , by a ranch hand on a cattle ranch north of Hillsborough State Park.
The body, dead for nearly a week, had been shoved under a barbed wire fence and was lying facedown. Her head was a mass of maggot activity. Her clothing had been scattered, her panties on the fence, her bra on the gate. The girl had been raped and strangled, and then killed with a shot to the back of her head - a different method from the others. She was identified by her fingerprints as Chanel Devon Williams, an year-old black girl who had just been released from jail after being arrested for prostitution.
The FBI lab found both types of red carpet fibers on her clothing, a brown Caucasian pubic hair on her sweater, and semen stains on her clothing that contained both A and H blood group substances. The semen stains found in this case did not match the Simms case, but both had been prostitutes, so the similarities among the evidence outweighed this difference.
On October 14, , a fifth body was discovered in northeastern Hillsborough County. Her wrists were bound with a red bandana, and her legs and neck had been tied with a long thick shoelace. She had been beaten about the head and raped. Her yellow sweatshirt was pulled up to her neck, exposing a bruised and bloodied torso, with indicators that she had been dragged. She was wearing only the sweatshirt, although the rest of what appeared to be her clothing was scattered nearby.
The cause of death was strangulation. Because she was a known prostitute and drug addict, the investigating team had recognized her, but she was officially identified by her fingerprints as Karen Beth Dinsfriend, To link her with the other victims, both types of the red fibers had been found on her clothes. There were also brown Caucasian pubic hairs and semen that indicated A and H blood substances.
The next body was found two weeks later, on Halloween by a year-old man clearing a ditch next to US on the northern edge of Hillsborough County. This one was mummified, with hair still attached to her skull, so it was difficult to tell when she had been killed and dumped here. They did not rule her out of the investigation, but they did not have much evidence to use. They tried to identify her, but it wasn't until much later, when they had the killer in custody, that they learned her identity.
She was Kimberly Kyle Hoops, known as "Sugar," a year-old prostitute. She had been strangled to death with the black cloth choker that she wore around her neck. Another woman's body was found on November 6, , in Pasco County , the next county over from Hillsborough. A woman out horseback riding on her ranch had come across this victim. Body parts had been severed and scattered throughout the field.
Joan Woods, chief medical examiner of Pasco County , determined that the victim had been dead and dumped there for about two weeks. Although the bones had been gnawed by animals, Dr. Woods could still determine that the girl had died a violent death.
There was a 9-inch cord tied twice around the neck over a piece of cloth and a thick shoelace bound the wrists together. There were no bullets or bullet wounds, so the cause of death was deemed strangulation. Despite the dismemberment, there were many similarities to the other murders. The victim was a Caucasian female, about 20 years old and 5-foot 5-inches tall.
She was later identified, after the killer was apprehended, as year-old Virginia Lee Johnson, a prostitute on the Tampa Strip. On November 12, , a sign painter in Tampa came across another woman's body. This victim wore the leash-like noose around her neck and bore rope burns on her body. Her face was severely beaten, and her legs were forced open for a shocking display. Her clothing had been thrown near her, and fecal matter lay on the shirt. Miller estimated that she had been dead for two to three days, and that the cause of death was strangulation.
Inside the jeans there was a driver's license for a Kim Marie Swann. She was 21, and like a previous victim, she worked as a dancer at the Sly Fox Lounge on the Tampa Strip. Also like most of the previous victims linked in this series, on her jeans they found small particles of reddish carpet and some brown hairs.
The police worked this case hard, given all the bodies they had within a short period of time, but no leads panned out. They were desperate to find a suspect. A Survivor of Bobby Joe Long. Investigators busily interviewed people and watched suspicious areas along the Tampa Strip. They used their evidence and the FBI profile of the killer to narrow their search, but to no avail.
The killer's identity eluded them. Then year-old Lisa McVey was abducted. While all of the published accounts of this case cover this tale, the victim herself has helped to write, Smoldering Embers, her own book about it. She had survived the serial killer and was able to tell the police what she knew. While on her way home from work during the evening of November 3, , Lisa was grabbed off her bicycle and tied up by someone hiding in the bushes along the road.
He had a gun and said that he also had a knife. He quickly blindfolded her and forced her into his car. She was certain he meant to kill her. She begged him not to hurt her and said that she would do whatever he wanted. He ordered her to remove her clothes in his car and to perform oral sex on him. He drove her around for a while, says Joel Norris in Serial Killers , and eventually brought her back to his apartment, where he kept her hostage.
Her entire ordeal lasted 26 hours, as he repeatedly raped her, fondled her, forced her to perform sex acts on him, and even made her shower with him. He told her repeatedly that he did not want to hurt her. But despite her terror, Lisa managed to keep her head clear. She looked for opportunities to find this man again if she ever got free. At one point, her kidnapper stopped at an automatic teller machine to get some cash, so she peered under the blindfold at the dashboard and memorized what she could see of the car's interior.
She continued to get quick glimpses as they arrived at a white stucco building and went up some red steps. Although the man insisted that she keep her eyes shut as he abused her, she managed to get a look at her surroundings. She also dropped a barrette next to the bed, unnoticed, to prove that she had been there. After a marathon rape session, her attacker dozed off. When he woke up, he said he now trusted her. She sensed that when they talked, he relaxed and was less brutal with her.
He stopped referring to her as "bitch" and started calling her "Babe. She had no idea what he intended to do, but she found ways to keep him from getting angry. Then he seemed to lose interest. He took her back into his car and now she knew she would find out if she was to live or die. To her surprise, he stopped the car and told her to get out. He let her go, telling her, "Take care. Lisa wasted no time in getting home.
She woke her father, told him what happened, and he called the police. The investigators working the serial killer case did not yet realize it, but this was their big break. Lisa described her kidnapper as a white male in his mids.
He had a deep voice; his hair was brown, about an inch long in a "layered cut. He was compact but slightly overweight and had come across as somewhat feminine. She noted the gun, and then went on to describe the car, a dark red or maroon two-door Dodge Magnum with a red steering wheel and dashboard, and white seats and interiors.
She did not remember anything about the carpet. She also recalled details about the apartment where she'd been raped and tried to give the officers a hint about its location, as well as the location of the bank where they had stopped, but the blindfold had limited how much she was able to offer. Gary Terry was designated as the team supervisor.
Their first meeting took place on November 14, All the cooperating homicide and sex crime detectives learned that the FBI lab had processed the Lisa McVey evidence and found the same red fibers evident in the other serial murder cases. They now had good information about the killer, including a description of him, his car, his apartment, and his bank. The profile had come fairly close on several points. More important, the place where Lisa had been released had given them a good sense of where to be on the lookout for the red car.
Yet even as Lisa was telling her story, the killer was at work again on his next victim, a woman who willingly got into his car. She fought him, so he strangled her and then drove around with her corpse. He even stopped for gas with her body still in the front seat, but no one noticed. He then took her out to the countryside and dumped her.
The Takedown of Bobby Joe Long. Flowers says slow-moving, while Ward indicates that the car "zipped" by, as if speeding. They pulled the car over and they checked his license. The man's name was Robert Joe Long, better known as Bobby Joe, and his address matched the area that the police were searching for the killer's apartment.
The car's interior also matched what Lisa McVey had described. They approached him and told him they were looking for a robbery suspect Ward says a hit-and-run suspect , so he cooperated and let them photograph him. He was visibly relieved when they let him go.
Now that they had information for leads, the task force checked the bank transactions and found that Long had made a withdrawal at precisely the time McVey said her abductor had made a withdrawal. That was significant. They then examined Long's criminal record and found that he was currently on probation for an aggravated assault in Hillsborough earlier in The FBI profile had indicated that the killer they were looking for could have a record.
They put surveillance teams on him and tapped into his phone line. They then got a vehicular search warrant and an arrest warrant on the charges of kidnapping and sexual battery. In preparation to take him, they put together four teams: an arrest and security transport team, a vehicular seizure and search team, a residence search team, and a neighborhood survey team to interview Long's neighbors.
A swarm of cops grabbed Long as he came out of a movie theater and placed him under arrest. Then the other teams went into action. Once they had Long's car, they removed a sample of the right floor carpet and sent to the FBI lab for comparison. Special Agent Malone confirmed the fiber match.
They disassembled the car's interior for them to check for fibers from the victims' clothing or from rope, victim fingerprints, blood, and any other potential physical evidence. In Long's apartment, which looked as Lisa had described it, detectives located her barrette.
They found plenty of photos of nude women, including photos that Long had taken of himself raping some victims. They also located pieces of female clothing. Long signed a consent-to interview form and was interrogated by Detectives Latimer and Price. During the course of the interrogation, they learned that Long was an unemployed X-ray technician who lived in Tampa Florida. Once married and with two children, he had been divorced for five years. His former family lived with their mother in Hollywood , Florida.
He quickly admitted to kidnapping McVey and to having sex with her many times. Yet he added that at one point McVey said that she did not want to leave. He claimed that he had unloaded the gun and put the bullets in the trash so he wouldn't be tempted to hurt her. About the blindfold that Lisa wore, Long said he had fashioned it himself two days before the abduction - just in case. Long said he did not use drugs, rarely drank, and did not suffer from memory losses.
The interrogators then brought up the subject of physical evidence. They told Long the many kinds of evidence that can be gathered at a crime scene and showed him photos of the five known murder victims, asking if he knew them. Long had also developed a strangely overt, compulsive and often dangerous sex drive—crime analysts would later attribute his violent character to a sexual obsession, labeling him as a sexual sadist.
When Cynthia filed for divorce in , Long moved in with a female friend, Sharon Richards, who would later accuse him of rape and battery. In the fall of , Long was charged with sending an inappropriate, sex-infused letter and photographs to a year-old Florida girl, earning him a short jail sentence and probation. During this time, Long also made the criminal leap to becoming a rapist.
His method was to scout out "For Sale" signs on houses and hunt through classified ads for furniture and other items, leading to an opportunity to enter an unsuspecting woman's home and force himself on her. According to police, Long committed more than 50 rapes during this period. By the spring of , Long had made another criminal jump: He committed his first murder. Initially just looking to fulfill his sexual needs, Long picked up a young prostitute named Artis Wick in March After assaulting and raping Wick, he decided that he wasn't fulfilled, so he strangled and killed her.
He pulled up to Lana and offered her a ride, which she accepted, but he soon pulled his car off the road and took out a knife. When Lana began screaming and attempting to fight Long, he tied her up and drove to a more remote road, where he raped and strangled her.
According to police, Lana Long's body was found face down a few days later, her hands bound behind her back and her legs spread far apart officers measured five feet from one heel to the other. Long's next victim was Michelle Simms, a year old prostitute. After luring her to his car, Long beat and raped her, before slashing her throat repeatedly. Detectives connected Simms's murder to Lana Long's when the same material—a red nylon fiber—was found on both women. Police then discovered Long's fourth victim, Elizabeth Loudenback, some 17 days after she was killed.
Loudenback's body was badly decomposed when detectives found her; she was lying on her back, fully clothed. According to police, Loudenback was different from Long's other victims, as she was not a drug user, prostitute or stripper. Long's fifth victim, a young prostitute named Chanel Williams, had been walking along a Tampa street when Long picked her up.
After raping and attempting to strangle Williams, Long pulled out his gun and shot her in the neck. Two more murders followed, with police soon finding the bodies of Karen Dinsfriend and Kimberly Hopps. After dragging McVey to his car, he forced her to perform oral sex and then brought her to his apartment, where he raped her repeatedly, and even showered with her.
However, unlike his other victims, Long let McVey live after treating her like a sex slave for more than 24 hours. It was McVey's testimony that would finally lead police to Long. However, McVey had provided a brief description of her assailant and his car, and on November 16, , Long was arrested at a movie theater not far from his Tampa home. The mysterious red fibers, which had helped police connect the murder victims, was found to match the interior carpeting of his car.
Once in custody, Long was also connected to the recently discovered murder of Vicky Elliot. In April , Long was convicted of first-degree murder in the Virginia Johnson case and was sentenced to death. Later that year, Long pleaded guilty to eight Hillsborough County murders. Wick's body wasn't found until several days after Long's arrest, and because Long had not pleaded guilty to murdering Wick until long after submitting his original confession, he was never formally charged with her murder.
Long was convicted of the other eight murders in Hillsborough County, among several other charges. He was handed more than two dozen life imprisonment sentences and, in the summer of , was sentenced to death by electrocution for the murder of Michelle Simms.
Bobbie Jo Stinnett (December 4, – December 16, ) was a pregnant year-old American woman found murdered in her home in Skidmore, Missouri. Robert Joseph "Bobby Joe" Long (October 14, – May 23, ) was an American serial killer and rapist who was executed by the state of Florida for the. I have been working on this album for two years. Piecing together the lyrics from life's mysteries and epiphanies. Dreaming up the tunes.