Miami, Florida – On Thursday, the state of Florida executed Robert Joe Long, sentenced to death for the 1984 murder of 22-year-old Michelle Denise Simms, who also confessed to killing nine other women.
Long, 65, was pronounced dead at 6:55 pm local time (22.55 GMT) after receiving a lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Bradford County, in the north of the state.
Long did not receive visits or spiritual advisors in what has been his last day of existence, and his last meal consisted of a sandwich of meat and bacon, chips and a soft drink, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
“He was calm and calm,” said entity spokeswoman Michelle Gladdy, during a press conference held outside the prison, before the execution.
Robert “Bobby” Joe Long, who was on death row 34 years, was arrested in 1984 after kidnapping and raping Lisa Noland, a 17-year-old teenager who managed to escape and allowed the police to find the whereabouts of he was known as “The violator of classified ads”.
The executioner, who is accused of being the author of dozens of violations, used to choose his victims after being interested in articles that were sold in the classifieds of the local press. When he went to the home he proceeded to attack if he found a single woman in the house.
The chain of murders, according to the police, began with Artiss Ann Wick, who died in March 1984 and was followed by at least nine other fatalities, almost all of them strangled, until her arrest in November of that year.
In almost all cases, the bodies were found in wooded and rural areas, in some cases naked and with signs of having been strangled.
For the series of murders and rapes, Bobby Joe Long was sentenced to 28 life sentences and capital punishment in a 1985 trial.
The execution of Long, the first authorized by the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, and in which Noland was present, according to local media, occurred after the Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed by his defense, the last judicial link that It could have prevented the lethal injection.
With that of Long, so far this year in the country, eight prisoners have been executed.
Tennessee executed Donnie Johnson a week ago, after being sentenced to death for murdering his wife, Connie, in 1984 with a garbage bag that slipped down his throat.
Since the Supreme Court restored the death penalty four decades ago, 1,498 prisoners have been executed in the United States, 98 of them in Florida. Long’s is the first of this year. (EFEUSA)
