Who were Bobby Joe Long's victims?

BOBBY Joe Long was a prolific serial killer and rapist, thought to have raped more than 50 women.

Long was eventually given the death penalty in Florida after going on a killing spree in March 1984.

Who were Bobby Joe Long’s victims?

While the exact number of his victims has not been fully established it is thought Long could have raped more than 50 women.

Bobby Joe Long was executed by lethal injection on May 23, 2019.

Long began an eight-month killing spree in 1984, strangling and killing a young prostitute in Tampa, Florida, as his first victim.

Long would drive around in his 1978 Dodge Magnum looking for women in areas known for prostitution.

During his trial Long claimed the women would normally approach him first and then he would persuade them to go back to his apartment.

Once there he would then tie them up with a rope before raping and murdering them – either by strangling them, slitting their throat or hitting them over the head with a blunt instrument.

Artiss Ann Wick, 20 – killed on March 27, 1984

The sex worker was just 20 when she became Long’s first victim.

Police found Wick’s skeletal remains on November 22, 1984, in rural southern Hillsborough County.

Ngeun Thi Long, 19 – killed on May 13, 1984

The Southern California woman had come to Tampa in February and worked as a dancer at the Starlite Lounge and Sly Fox Lounge.

Ngeun Thi Long had recently quit her job at the Tampa nightclub as an exotic dancer to study art and cinema at the University of South Florida.

Her body was found naked and bound with rope on May 13, 1984, by an overpass on East Bay Road.

Michelle Denise Simms, 22 – killed on May 27, 1984

Born in San Bernadino County, California, Simms had been a beauty contestant.

She had worked as a receptionist at a Fort Pierce massage parlor before coming to Tampa in May 1984.

Cops found her body, stabbed and bound, near an Interstate 4 overpass by Plant City.

Linda Nuttall - assaulted in May 1984; survived

Long answered an ad to sell some of Nuttall and her husband’s furniture.

He committed his crime while Nuttall’s children were in the house.

Kevin Nuttall, Linda’s husband, said at the time of Long’s execution: “He got what he deserved. Today’s just another chapter.”

Elizabeth Loudenback, 22 – killed on June 8, 1984

Loudenback worked as a solderer at a manufacturing plant in Odessa and lived with her parents and younger siblings at the Village-Tampa Community mobile home park, just a few blocks from the Nebraska Avenue strip where some of the other victims worked.

Cops discovered her body east of Brandon on June 24.

She was left in an orange grove and had been raped and strangled.

Vicky Marie Elliott, 21 – killed on September 7, 1984

Elliott waited tables overnight at the Ramada Inn coffee shop and reports at the time said she was hoping to return to Michigan to study to become a paramedic.

She disappeared on September 7.

She had asked a neighbour for a ride to work, but by the time the neighbour showed up, Elliott was gone.

Police found her body in a patch of scrub northeast of Tampa on November 16.

Chanel Devoun Williams, 18 – killed on October 7, 1984

Williams had moved to Tampa from Winter Haven just a month before she was brutally murdered.

Police said she was working as a prostitute.

She was last seen on a street corner of the Nebraska Avenue strip on the evening of September 30.

Her body was found on October 7. She had been shot in the head and neck.

Karen Beth Dinsfriend, 28 – killed on October 14, 1984

Dinsfriend grew up in St. Petersburg and had a history of drug abuse, according to reports.

She is said to have been working as a prostitute at the time of her death.

Dinsfriend was found strangled in an orange grove in northeastern Hillsborough, seven hours after she was last seen on the sidewalk of N. Nebraska Avenue.

Kimberly Kyle Hopps, 22 – killed on October 31, 1984

Hopps had been living in the Sulphur Springs neighbourhood in Tampa.

Although little is known about Hopps she last been seen walking with a group of prostitutes mid-October near Nebraska.

Her body was found on an isolated portion of US 301 north of Tampa on Halloween.

Lisa McVey, 17 – assaulted on November 3, 1984; survived

Long spotted teenager Lisa McVey on her bicycle in Tampa at around 2am as she cycled home from work at a Krispy Kreme factory.

Unlike his other victims, he raped her repeatedly for more than 26 hours before setting her free.

McVey provided a brief description of her assailant and his car, and on November 16, 1984, Long was arrested at a movie theatre not far from his Tampa home.

Long was executed by lethal injection on May 23, 2019.

The execution was witnessed by McVey, who sat in the front row.

She said: “I wanted to be the first person he saw.”

McVey’s experience led her to pursue a career in law enforcement. She became a Hillsborough Sheriff’s Deputy.

Virginia Lee Johnson, 18 – killed on November 6, 1984

The Connecticut-born woman had been in and out of Florida for a few years, according to Tampa Bay Times archives.

She vanished from the Nebraska Avenue area between Fowler and Fletcher in late October.

She was found November 6 near Morris Bridge Road in Pasco County, but police were unable to identify her body initially.

Kim Marie Swann, 21 – killed on November 11, 1984

Swann briefly worked as a dancer at the Sly Fox.

Just a few months before her death, she decided she wanted to change her life.

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She and her one-year-old son Robbie moved into her parents’ Carrollwood home, and she enrolled in a vocational programme to become a medical technician.