Bobby Joe Long, 65, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday at Florida State Prison over a murderous spree that claimed 10 women’s lives in the Tampa Bay area back in 1984
The sister of one of the 10 women murdered by a Florida serial killer who is due to be executed says she hopes his death is painful and he ‘burns in hell’.
Bobby Joe Long, 65, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday at Florida State Prison over a murderous spree that claimed 10 women’s lives in the Tampa Bay area back in 1984.
The family of one of his victims, 18-year-old Chanel Williams, spoke out just hours before his execution to call him a ‘stone cold callous murderer’.
‘I hope it’s painful and I hope he burn in hell,’ Chanel’s sister Algalana Douglas told WTSP.
Long had his last meal on Thursday morning and requested a roast beef sandwich, bacon and a soda.
His violent rampage, which included rapes and murders, started in March 1984 with the brutal killing of Artiss Ann Wick. Nine more victims followed until his arrest eight months later.
His spree earned him 28 life sentences and the death penalty for one of the killings.
The majority of his victims were strangled, while other had their throats slit or were bludgeoned before being positioned in a gruesome way.
After his arrest, Long confessed to that and other crimes and admitted to being ‘The Classified Ad Rapist’ – the moniker investigators gave while trying to solve dozens of rapes.
Algalana Douglas, who is the sister of 18-year-old victim Chanel Williams, spoke out just hours before his execution and said she hoped he burned in hell
Long would go through classified ads and make appointments to see items for sale. If a woman answered the door, he would rape her if she was home alone.
Investigators were horrified and baffled by the trail of bodies that he left in the Tampa Bay area.
His crime spree ended when one of his rape victims survived and was brave enough to leave a trail of evidence, including blood in his car, and remembered details about where he lived that she could pass on to police.
That victim, Lisa Noland, had previously survived being raped by her grandmother’s boyfriend. She plans to sit in the front row in the room where witnesses will watch Long die.
Long’s ex-wife, Cindy Brown, said earlier that she regrets not shooting him dead after a brutal beating and the decision has haunted her ever since given the lives he later destroyed.
Brown, who was Long’s childhood sweetheart and shares two children with him, said she believes he is getting what he deserves.
‘This is something that in my heart should have happened many, many years ago,’ she said.
‘It’s been a long time coming. I hate to see anybody die, but he’s done the things that he’s done. You made your bed; it’s time to lay in it.’
Long admitted after his arrest to being ‘The Classified Ad Rapist’ – the moniker investigators gave while trying to solve dozens of rapes. Long would go through classified ads and make appointments to see items for sale. He would rape women if they answered the door and were home alone
Long, who has two daughters, went on a murderous spree in 1984 in Tampa Bay earned him 28 life sentences and the death penalty for one of the 10 killings
Brown, who divorced Long in 1980, still vividly recalls an increasingly violent man.
One day, he grabbed her, choked her and slammed her head into a television, knocking her unconscious with a gash to the forehead.
‘When I came to, I was on the couch. Of course, he was there, crying. ‘I’ll never do it again. I’m so sorry.’ Then the next words were, ‘When you drive yourself to get your stitches, if you tell them what really happened, I’ll kill you when you get home,’ Brown said.
She said after that beating, she loaded a shotgun and pointed it at Long with the intention of killing him.
Brown didn’t go through with it and said it has haunted her ever since.
‘I have forgiven the man for what he did to me – the name calling, the physical violence, everything else… I don’t think I will I ever forgive him for what this has caused my children, nor will I ever forgive him for what he did to those girls, whether they be the murder victims or the rape victims,’ Brown said.
Long went on his violent rampage against women in the years after their divorce.
Brown was living in the Miami area while Long was killing women. Though she still feared him, they spoke regularly because he had visitation rights to their children.
The woman who was his childhood sweetheart and father of their two children, Cindy Brown, said she believes he is getting what he deserves. The couple divorced in 1980 before his murderous spree
Brown, who divorced Long in 1980, said she regrets not killing him after a brutal beating and the decision has haunted her ever since given the lives he later destroyed
She would turn on the TV news every morning while getting ready for work and one morning was on the phone with him when news reported another one of his victims was found.
‘I said, ‘Bob, you always tell me to be careful, but what’s going on out there in Tampa?” Brown said. ‘And he said, ‘That’s why I tell you, because you never know’.’
It wasn’t long before she received another phone call from Long and she could tell by his voice there was something wrong.
‘You know the girls in Tampa?’ Brown recalled Long saying.
Her first thought was that Long’s then-girlfriend, named Barbara, was one of the serial killer’s victims.
‘Oh my God! They killed Barbara!,” Brown recalled saying.
‘He said, ‘No, I killed the girls.’ And I told him, ‘Bob, that’s not funny. Don’t joke like that. It just isn’t funny.’ And he said, ‘I’m not joking,” Brown said.
A Hillsborough County sheriff’s sergeant than took the phone from Long and confirmed that he had been charged.
‘That was when my whole world turned upside down,’ Brown said.
While she agrees Long should be executed, she knows it is opening up wounds for her son and daughter and the families of those killed.
‘Every one of the victims and the victim’s families are in my prayers. I know it’s a tough emotional roller coaster for them, and I am so, so sorry,’ she said, choking up with tears.
‘I understand it’s not my fault, but tell my heart that. Make my heart believe that.’