Born to Kill - Bobby Joe Long (HD)

during the mid-1980s Florida's Tampa Strip was torn apart by a twisted killer this individual had a skill and that skill was killing his sadistic actions fueled by an inner fury because biggest problem was he grew to hate women that day he came very close to killing me those who lived tell the tale of a monster one minute he was calm as a four-year-old child next thing he is a raging ball with an insatiable desire our hives and body count gonna go before we catch this guy but what drove this prolific perpetrator he's enjoying what he's doing and he's gonna kill again and was he born to kill anything that can composite a serial killer he's like the poster child [Applause] [Music] [Music] although Florida is famously known as the Sunshine State in 1984 the city of Tampa had a reputation for coming alive after dark in the mid-1980s it was kind of a raucous area of downtown called the strip there's a lot of bars a lot of strip bars a lot of prostitution on the streets drug sales people coming and going operating in the area was a vicious killer who had left behind him a trail of bodies each crime scene revealing the ferocity of his violence it was a tense nervous situation at the time when you have somebody like that near home in the streets [Music] on the night of the 3rd of November 1984 17 year-old Lisa McVey was on her way home following a double shift at a local donut shop I always took the same route on the way right way home it was always dark but it seemed darker that night that unusual so I'm pedaling my pies are gonna sidewalk but a car of mine blew the horn and I'm thinking about that was kind of odd why would a car go by a blow horn I'm on the sidewalk I got halfway down the street I noticed there was a car in the parking lot of the church and I looked back to the church again and next thing I know I was just yanked off my bicycle it felt like three or four guys just just jerked me off my bike to no end and then I felt the cold steel barrel of a gun to my left temple he drugged me across the street I couldn't see his face but he got me to the car same car I had seen in the parking lot he threw me into the driver's side I remember seeing white bucket seats I remember seeing red carpet I remember seeing a huge knife sitting in the middle of the seats he blindfolded me down my hands my wrists and my feet he also took my seat and reclined it back shortly after that he drives off about 20 minutes maybe 25 minutes he got off the interstate Joe for a short distance and I was able to see beneath my blindfold it's dark outside but I could still see tops of trees because I was reclining it back in the seat like this is it he's gonna kill me here Lisa's abduction would eventually be the turning point in the hunt for the depraved killer the story began eight months earlier the short distance away southeast of Tampa detective Gary Terry was called to a crime scene of appalling brutality two young boys have been playing off East Bay Road and they had discovered a body and they went to their parents and their parents went saw the body and then they call the office when I arrived at the scene we had some units re-imposition patrol units had already cordoned off the area there was a barricade just down here a little ways the children have been playing beyond the barricade and that's where they found the body she was lying on her stomach with her head facing in the southwest direction her legs were spread we measured from one heel to the other and that distance was approximately 5 foot 1 inches and width she had her hands and bound behind her back there was a ligature about her neck it wasn't until we cut the ligature off at the medical examiner's office that you could actual to see a lead like a leash like effect from the ligature the cause of death of this particular victim was the fixation or strangulation as investigators examined the shocking scene they would unearth a distinctive piece of evidence we recovered tire impressions and then of course the most the crucial evidence is that we found the red trilobal nylon fiber they could not say where it came from the source of it and of course this day and time you think DNA will 1984 there was no DNA the body was eventually identified as that of Lana Long a dancer who worked on Tambor's infamous strip in the mid 80s we had very rarely had homicide victims bound so that really caused you know a red flag to alert us that you know we had a we had a problem on our hands as investigators began to work the case few would have guessed that the man they were searching for would soon become one of the most notorious killers in American history in May 1984 exotic dancer Lana Long had been brutally raped and sadistically strangled before being dumped in a rural area near Tampa Florida despite a lack of witnesses the perpetrator had left some clues at the scene including a distinctive red fiber when Garry Terry received a call about the discovery of a second body he quickly began to fear the worst I can vividly remember on driving on the way to the homicide scene telling myself please please don't let this person be bound and that's the first thing I asked the deputy at protecting the crime scene is this victim bound and he said yes sir she is the body was that a prostitute Michel Sims she'd been found in a secluded Lovers Lane east of Tampa City when they called me on that particular crime and of course right off the bat you're trying to say to yourself is this related to the first one we found just several weeks earlier now we're approaching this is an area right here and at one point we had a downpour just like this while we're processing the crime scene when when we got to the scene she had a ligature around her neck and she also had a throat cut we found the pieces of rope that were used and they all seemed to be cut in same length this kind of gives you an indication that this wasn't just a quick crime this was something that somebody has planned despite challenging weather and rough terrain detectives uncovered a crucial piece of evidence in close proximity to her body was a sandy area you had the tire impressions we were able to get an entire roll of the tire from one end to one end and we were able to match that to portions of the that we were able to get at the other crime scene for land along the presence of the distinctive red fiber also seen at the murder of Lana Long confirmed that Tampa indeed had a serial killer stalking the area they're both females they are nude they're taken out of the city dumped in the county and they have ligatures attached and it just jumps out at you that these two cases should be related or connected in other words they the same killer is most likely responsible for these two cases the brutal murders had abruptly ended the troubled lives of the two working girls 30 years previously another single woman searching for an escape had arrived in the Sunshine State newly separated Louella long had left her hometown in West Virginia in 1955 with her two-year-old son Bobby Jo however their new life together proved to be far from easy he had a series of injuries he fell off a swing and and when he regained consciousness he had a stick in his eye the more serious was the one where a car hit him and and he he was hospitalized but when a car hits a child it's what his cause damage he had an attention disorder as well as a miss form chin the Willers chosen career in Miami would create further complications at home she tried to wait tables and things like that but she couldn't make a living and so she found a job at a place called Big Daddy's down there and it was oh it was a bar lounge and that's when the trouble really started with her son Bobby Jo and herself because he didn't like the way she was dressed to go to work and the scanty clothes you know and he just was a very unhappy little boy as he grew older Bobby Joe's relationship with his mother became increasingly strained Bobby Jo's mom was one of the prettiest woman I had ever seen as a 16 or 17 year old she had scores of men constantly fighting for her attention they had to share one room and for quite a period of time he slept with his mother she often bought men home with her and and he resented that adolescent boys need to see their mothers as a sexual so when a mother brings boyfriends over to the home walks around a partially dressed as was the case long you can see how that can really have a very very unsettling effect on an adolescent boy their sexuality is developing and they're they're having feelings about this woman's body and it feels inappropriate so they're ashamed but also they're aroused it's creating confusion is creating anger as well at the mother for doing this - putting them in this position Bobby Joe's resentment towards his mother would also rear its head outside the family home well I tried very hard to be a good mother to Bobby Jo and she was she she would often take him to the beach and unless he almost drowned and and he would he held her accountable that she was looking at other men where she should be looking at him they were close but they also fought quite a bit because he wasn't really approving of her relationships with all the different men she had been around a rare medical condition would instill feelings of insecurity as Bobby Jo progressed through his teenage years Bobby Joe long had been born with an extra chromosome which manifests itself in a female way he had breast when he was 13 and any but he did have surgery to reduce that he would never take his shirt off when we would all go swimming like the other boys were doing and everything he would always keep covered up and as a matter of fact when we actually when we got older and we were intimate with each other he would always keep his shirt on Bobby Joe long had Klinefelter's syndrome a double X chromosome in the cells and has a number of negative consequences one of which is gynecomastia the development of breasts in men and you can see how a child or an adolescent would be brutally teased you know for a boy developing breasts so first of all has the humiliation of his own body and then he also had to undergo a number of surgeries to get get these breasts reduced which also is embarrassing and painful and would probably make him resent women 13 years later in 1984 across the state on the Gulf Coast two women working the Tampa Strip had been brutally strangled by a single killer as police pursued the cases the body-count continued to rise to more women were murdered in quick succession but the mo appeared to be at odds with the first two victims there was the body of Elizabeth Laden back she was fully clothed she was not bound there was no obvious trauma to the body at the next meta scene detective Gary Terry observed differences even more significant than the last the property owner came out of the sod farm on this particular evening after dark he locked the gate and then walked over to the barbed wire fence here it was at this location that he actually discovered Chanel's body it was lying underneath the fence while there were some similarities the biggest difference was the fact that this victim was black not white like our previous victims and another big difference was the fact that she had suffered a gunshot wound to the back of the neck despite these discrepancies Chanel Williams had been a prostitute working the Tampa Strip forensic examination of both crime scenes would irrefutable link all the murders - just one killer the evidence was sent to the FBI laboratory and sure enough it came back red trilobal nylon carpet fiber so actually this was our fourth homicide victim in the fourth case in the series involving the same suspect while they continued their search for a suspect investigators would learn that the perpetrators desire for death and destruction was becoming insatiable at one point investigation we were finding a body about every two weeks the time spans are so short between them that you just every time the phone rings you just kind of cringe because you know it's going to be a costly to respond to another scene the fear was sickening the police were baffled and the bodies kept turning up he's he's maturing he's progressing and he's enjoying what he's doing and he's gonna kill again just one week later this prediction will be proved right when 28 year old Karen dins friend was found strangled to death the former prostitute was yet another victim who had been working tampers infamous trip they all had the same lifestyle they all came from basically the same area of town so we started focusing our attention to that area this was a horrible realization the working girl's from the strip those working there were scared to death they knew what was happening they knew about the victims some even knew the victims and they they were petrified but that was the only way they could make money the police started talking to the club owners and trying to get some clue about suspicious-looking people but as one club owner said everybody walking in here looks suspicious despite a heightened state of alert the day of Halloween would bring another gruesome discovery to the east of the city we will respond to the scene and we find the mummified remains of a female victim lying in the ditch the body would later be identified as that of Kimberly Hobbs the 22 year old prostitute had been viciously strangled and once again the twisted killer had unwittingly deposited the mysterious red fibers at the scene our hires and body count gonna go before we catch this guy you know how many other victims are out here that we haven't discovered 11 years before the carnage began over 270 miles away in the city of Hialeah troubled teenager Bobby Joe long had made a positive impression with one of his contemporaries there was a park that a lot of the kids used to play at and we would go there after school and they were play football with the boys and he came one day and that's when I met him he was very nice a very funny personality and a lot of fun to be around and you know we just hit it off right away he wasn't anything out of the ordinary I was just an average kid it was a little bit of a wiseass as Bobby's attitude deteriorated his school life would start to suffer I was a poor sport didn't like to lose he did manage to skip school as much as he could possibly get away with and I don't believe he even graduated high school he was not accepted as school it was his matter more than anything else mostly he was a scrappy mostly he was brash he was not refined in any way he used to fight a lot with other people he would never back down from an argument and it would eventually turn into blows local hunting expeditions with friends would often inspire the worst in Bobby he always wanted to go a step further we used to do a lot of spearfishing we had regular spear guns but he had bought these two attachments they were called power heads and that you would unscrew the spear in the screw on this attachment and it would hold a 12-gauge shotgun shell he goes I'm gonna go down and shoot that shark with this power head I got to see what it'll do and he went down and and blew it away shot her right in the head and the thing just never moved and he came back up very very excited about what he had just done he just had to see the damage log was a very sadistic individual his his sadism just poured out of him and one thing he said which was interesting was he really didn't understand what made him do this and that's probably true [Music] despite these displays of aggression one girl would stand by him childhood sweetheart Cindy was convinced Bobby Joe long was her destiny as soon as I met Bob I I just you know a young girl in love and I just figured that that was who was gonna be my husband and we dated for you know several years we had a lot of fun together we'd go to the movies go spearfishing down in the keys run around the neighborhood as younger kids and paper people's houses and you know we weren't bad kids but we were mischievous he was a very caring person and you know I was I guess his prized catch or something we were best of friends over a decade later across Florida Tampa Bay remained in the grip of a killer having gruesomely murdered six innocent women the twisted perpetrator was about to come face-to-face with 17-year old Lisa McVey during 1984 Tampa Bay Florida was plagued by a sadistic serial killer just four days after the discovery of his sixth victim Kimberly Hopps the perpetrator would act again Lisa McVey recalls the terrifying night she was grabbed from her bicycle and bundled into a car during the ordeal that followed she was blindfolded and led to a murderer's apartment I was thinking myself I need to get some type of information on hammers who is this guy what's it look like and if I can't seem to my eyes I'm gonna see him through my hands we're in some type of apartment it's fresh new paint it smells very new he directs me to the bathroom boards me to take my clothes off and we step into the shower despite being subjected to repeated abuse Lisa learned to placate the man whose anger was fierce and unpredictable his demeanor was very aggressive you know I did what he told me to do I was afraid if I didn't he would kill me then he got in the shower and he was like night and day it was like a fantasy for him it was like he started bathing me I started washing my hair and started he was trying to touch me gentle he would hold me for a second and all some become this aggressive monster again it was like one minute he was calm as a four-year-old child next thing he is a raging bull I remember that we had a conversation and at one point during the conversation I asked him I think why are you doing this to me he said he was doing this to me because he was getting back at women in general for a really bad breakup with another girl and then right after that he puts my hands on his face again he starts to soften up like he's trying to live a fantasy of a boyfriend a girlfriend relationship he guides my hands over his face now I'm seeing what he looks like he's got pockmarked face because a small clean-cut mustache small ears small nose thick eyebrows short hair it was like I just saw him through my hands after 26 torturous hours Lisa was convinced that her end was near about 4 o'clock in the morning he got me dressed and he asked me what am I supposed to do with you and I said to him it's like why I'm blindfolded and still tied up I said listen this is how a plate on his heart - listen I know you said that have done this to other women before cuz of broken relationship it's unfortunate how we met you seem like a nice guy I can take care of you I'll be your girlfriend and I won't tell anybody how we met and that guy I'm thinking no no no I I can't I can't keep you where do you live and to open the door of I will go ahead and drop you off in the area you live in upon her release Lisa was able to recount her ordeal to investigators however as her case was centered around abduction it was not initially linked to the serial killer operating in the area [Music] three days later the discovery of the body of another prostitute Virginia Johnson would signal to police that the murderer had struck again after discovering victim number seven we were definitely in uncharted waters and we're coming up with nothing we're hitting a dead end every lead we're getting the perpetrator was killing with reckless abandon the individual was not covering his bodies up he was not digging a grave and putting me in a hole he would kill him then he would just throw them away he wanted them found and he wanted whoever found them to be shot not just at the idea of a dead body but the position because it was a way to humiliate the victim to to put her in the most vulnerable grotesque possible display so that when people saw her that's what they would think when Gary Terry received a call on the 12th of November he knew that it could only mean one thing the killer had struck again after being called by the Tampa Police Department to this scene I came up to this side of the roadway here on aurilla Road and looked down the embankment and you could see the body of the victim she was spread-eagle on her stomach as soon as I saw the body way it was you know it was displayed out there I knew it had to be him again to kill her the body was that of Kimberly Swann a dancer from the same Tampa strip bar where the first victim Lerner long had once worked detectives were now becoming exasperated with the lack of leads the need to identify a suspect was occupying authorities around the clock were eight victims down and evidence still accumulating and we're finding new evidence at every case but we have no body to put it with and so there's no nothing stopping this guy from continue to kill over a decade earlier during the 70s across the state near Miami high school dropout Bobby Joe long had struggled to land a steady job searching for some direction he joined the Army in 1972 the new recruit would earn a commendation and find some stability in his turbulent life private first class long was also ready to settle down we were married January the 25th of 74 and his accident happened March the 14th of 74 he was on his motorcycle he was at lunch and he was going down us one and an older gentleman didn't see him and hit him and he flew if I'm not mistaken like a hundred feet in and landed on his head he had head trauma we have a guy with brain damage already from head injuries so we have a lot of circumstances they seem to collude together to turn him into an aggressive individual following the incident Bobby also developed an uncontrollable urge during this time he had a complete sexual change and an appetite when his wife came to see him daily in a cast he demanded sex every day his sexual appetite seemed to have no bounds and the nurses there said that that he masturbated you know many times a day and he was just wild in the wake of the accident Cindy remembers her husband as a changed man it was pretty much right away started becoming physical with me you know if he didn't like what I cooked he'd have a fit and we'd end up in an argument and I remember him just like sitting on top of me in the bed and putting his knees here where I couldn't you know get him and he was choking me and punching me in the face and and I you know I couldn't even scream as the years went by the physical abuse intensified Cindy would eventually be hospitalized after a particularly brutal beating I really think that day he came very close to killing me [Music] the abuse became so constant it ultimately pushed Cindy to the brink I went home I loaded a double-barrel shotgun i sat there with it at his head and tried to pull the trigger so he woke up when his alarm went off and he said go ahead [ __ ] you don't have the nerve but I couldn't do it because my baby is for the rooms next to me and I didn't want to be without my children [Music] at that point I knew I needed to leave before somebody was hurt bad [Music] if long was angry for a long period of time and then suddenly lost somebody who had kept him from acting out once she's out of the picture it's a freeing of him being able to go out and do something that he's probably fantasized about Cindy was granted a divorce in July 1980 Bobby Joe long would then set up a new life in Tampa four years later the Gulf Coast City had suffered eight murders in just a few months as the net was cast far and wide in search of the killer finally a breakthrough [Music] police had discovered the distinctive red fibers on the clothing of kidnap victim Lisa McVey confirming that the man behind the serial murders was also responsible for Lisa's abduction she was bright enough to remember almost everything about the incident and that was the first break that the police had she was able to give a description of him a description of his apartment she said they stopped at an ATM machine and she wasn't sure which road she was on but it was just a short ways from the apartment that she had left blindfolded she remembered the vehicle she was being transported in she described the vehicle as being reddish orangish color she said it was white seats but she's when I think about the car I had the word Magnum on the dash armed with a concrete lead detectives believe the perpetrator was finally in their sights the task force really went into action they knew they were looking for a Dodge Magnum and so they got a statewide list of everyone who owned a Dodge Magnum 1 red Magnum would eventually stand out - detectives spot a Dodge Magnum in its reddish color and they actually pull this car over he's very cooperative you know Ashley steps away from the the car now he allows them to take a Polaroid photograph of himself at that time the officers come back to the Task Force Headquarters detectives meet with Lisa show where the photo array and she picks him out says that's the guy that kidnapped me that's the guy that raped me his name was Bobby Joe long a surveillance team was assembled to monitor his every move surveillance team followed bobbies along to this location to after he left his apartment and he vacuumed out his car and our first thoughts were he knows he's about to get caught and he's getting rid of evidence when they fall into two a movie theater and actually he goes into watches missing in action with Chuck Norris and all the time he's watching the movie there's a good bearded guy behind him there's one in front of him there's two or three on each side and while he's doing that there's another surveillance team watching the car outside in the parking lot and you still have that knowing that knowing doubt then you're in your gut is this really the guy you've been chasing for eight months and so I tell the undercover detectives that are outside watching his car I said listen tell me what kind of tires are on the car and they say we have did your Viva tire and then we have this other oddball tires call it vogue the distinctive trend matched the imprints discovered at the crime scenes as soon as you said those words there was no doubt in my mind that was our killer with the suspect finally within reach authorities knew there was no time to waste Bobby Joe long had to be stopped before he killed again following a series of connected murders kidnapped survivor Lisa McVey have provided Tampa police with vital clues in their hunt for a serial killer when the suspects tire tread matched those discovered at the crime scenes police were convinced they had finally found their man upon his arrest Bobby Joe long the man who had killed without mercy surrendered without a fight when I saw his picture up on the TV screen that day I was totally totally shocked that he could do that I didn't think he would have that in him we were all in total disbelief I would have never believed it never in a million years not only did Bobby Joe confess to the murders of eight he claimed responsibility for two more victims Vicky Elliot and artis wick he was the typical cold-blooded killer I mean he had he had no regrets he had no emotion for him nothing that did he showed any remorse for his actions during the interview they talked to mr. long Hawaiian or you know why did he do this you know and and did you surveil the victims or anything like that and he basically said you know whenever he got the urge he just he just did it but he couldn't explain the fact that he always had a knife a gun or the shoelaces you know in his vehicle ready to to be utilized when he committed these homicides [Music] but shockingly Long's criminal career had begun over a decade earlier he freely admitted to a spate of rapes across the state of Florida that's when he confessed to being the rapist following classified ads and going to look at either houses or furniture that people were selling and it was a female by herself then he would rape her he was very clever about it he would look in ads for people who were selling furniture particularly bedroom furniture and he would come at a time when he believed the husband would be away from home dressed up looking good if a man answered he'd go look and I know it's not what I want so nothing lost if a woman answered she'd take him back to look at the furniture and he could subdue her and rape her Bobby Jo would later describe the uncontrollable urges that had driven the twisted sexual attacks if I didn't do it if I tried not to do it I'd be able to pay for you know a day treated but it wouldn't stop you know this would go on until I did it then when I would do it I'd be okay for a month two months three months sometimes longer sometimes a couple of weeks sometimes a week and then it would hit again he's a rabid dog he's not frothing at the mouth dealing in everyday life situations but believe me when you get him in that car with that girl tied up in the front seat with him and you look at his face then I guarantee you you will see a rabid dog ultimately Long's sexually depraved acts progressed to multiple murder despite his mellow confession the killers mask would slip in court he passed by the front of all the television cameras that were covering the proceedings and he spit right into the lens of the camera that face right then when he had that flash of anger when he spit at the camera that gave you a little bit of what these poor girls must have seen right before they died these perverse sexual fantasies in serial sexual murderers are not learned from magazines or watching sadistic movies and tapes and so on their fantasies predated it begins 10 15 20 years earlier in the offenders mind in his fantasies and eventually he acts it out Bobby Joe long will be sentenced to death for his heinous crimes but how did this serial rapist develop a desire for death was he purely the victim of a troubled life or was he born to kill or Nikhil I don't believe so III got to disagree with that he chose that he chose that path I think something snapped that led him to be what he turned in to be his biggest problem was he grew to hate women his violence was there it was uncontrollable it escalated anything that can composite a serial killer he's like the poster child I wouldn't say he was a born killer but when you try to understand individuals like this it's unknown whether the problem is a hormonal whether it's electrical whether its genetic and so when you look at the combination of the behavior the sexualized behavior that he had with his mother plus his own gynecomastia the development of breasts as a result of Klinefelter's syndrome you could really see that that is not going to end well Bobby come on to me is no different than a drug addict or even an alcoholic just like an alcoholic needs to have a drink a drug addict would like to get some crack a serial killer like Bobby Geelong in my opinion is addicted to killing that's what makes him feel the best Bobby J lung resides on death row in Florida to this day his trail of sadistic violence has indelibly marked the lives of those who crossed his path I can't never imagine how anybody that gave you two children or was the love of your life how you could treat that person like that you know or it put aside everything else how do you treat any human like that nobody has the right to lay a hand on you I don't think I'll ever be over it to be honest with you [Music] but for Survivor Lisa McVey the experience has inspired a brave new chapter in her life I wasn't allowed anybody to hurt me again and the only way I knew how to do that was to get into law enforcement serving and protecting it's real it's not on my watch are you gonna be hurt tonight my empowerment comes from being so helpless and lost that feeling I had when I seventeen years old I'm not lost anymore I'm on top of my mountain and it feels pretty good [Music] [Music]

Channel: Killer Docs

Views: 918,171

Rating: 4.6686869 out of 5

Keywords: Born to Kill, Bobby Joe Long, serial killer

Id: QZyYBnEoOis

Length: 44min 14sec (2654 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 25 2020