Bound to Die by Anna Flowers

Author:Anna Flowers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blue Star Books

FOURTEEN

The task force officers had no reason to expect their rapid success in bringing in Long. His capture, however, produced a new avalanche of leads, evidence, and most of all, associated paperwork.

The team that searched Bobby Joe’s apartment gathered a large volume of evidence for analysis. Pictures were taken, and furniture and bedding were thoroughly vacuumed for the victims’ hair. There were many trash bags full of miscellaneous property belonging to Long. Two suitcases were seized that contained financial records and telephone address books, plus photo albums and loose pictures. At least twenty-five unidentified white females appeared in these photographs. Most of the photos were lewd, with some showing explicit sex acts. Apartment dumpsters and grounds were searched, and Long’s knife was found in his apartment.

On the Friday night it was gathered, this material was all placed in the evidence room for future study. It was cataloged and sent to the FBI for analysis. Team members wrote reports and processed evidence in the Long surveillance, arrest, and confession. They did the same for the Swann and Elliott cases.

Almost all of the task force detectives took a day off on Sunday, November 18, after working around the clock for a week in the investigation and arrest. Bobby Joe Long, however, had a memorable day.

At nine a.m., Long was taken from his isolation cell in the Hillsborough County jail on Morgan Street to the tiny, windowless courtroom in the building. The six-foot-tall, one-hundred-eighty-pound Long swayed from side to side as he walked, shackled and handcuffed. He was dressed in a blue jumpsuit stenciled with the jail’s insignia. He stopped about two feet in front of the bench where County Judge Perry Little was presiding.

Long was in court less than three minutes. When Judge Little asked him if he had spoken with an attorney, he responded, “Right!” Long stood silently between two detectives, sometimes looking at the judge, other times glancing down at the handcuffs on his wrists. Judge Little charged Long with eight counts of sexual battery and nine counts of kidnapping. The extra kidnapping charge was for the Pasco County victim abducted in Tampa. The final charge was for violation of his aggravated assault probation. The judge refused to allow bail for the murder charges. Judge Little advised Long of his legal rights, and he was returned to his cell.

On Monday, November 19, the investigation continued at full speed. Long had called the unidentified victim, who had been found in the ditch on U.S. 301, by her street name, ‘Sugar.’ He identified the contact location at Nebraska Avenue by the river in Sulphur Springs. This name and location directed local detectives to prostitute Kimberly Kyle Hopps, a twenty-two-year-old white female, who had been last seen by her boyfriend.

Her friend, Donald Jones, had filed a missing persons report on October 7, 1984, stating that his fiancée, Kimberly Hopps, had disappeared. When detectives interviewed him, Jones said the last time he had seen her was at the corner of Nebraska and Hanlon, near the Orange Motel.

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