THE CLASSIFIED
HAPPIER TIMES: Long at his wedding to Cindy before he turned into a real psycho WHEN Bobby Joe Long was hospitalised following a motorbike crash in 1974, his personality changed almost overnight.
He switched instantly from being a devoted husband to a sex-crazed monster prone to thunderous headaches and violent bouts of rage.
He also became a twisted serial rapist and smiling mass murderer... were Bobby Joe Long’s cravings for evil, he could to little to suppress them. On his arrest in November 1984, the trained Army underwater welder admitted his sadistic urges. brute has shown no regret at all for the barbaric crimes he perpetrated.
Born in Kenova, West Virginia, Long had a history of head trauma that began when he was a small boy. Many experts suggest it played a big part in the slow deterioration of his psyche.
A fall from a swing rendered him unconscious aged five, and a year later he fell from a bicycle, knocking himself out and losing his front teeth.
A year later a fall from a pony resulted in a serious concussion. the quays and run around the neighbourhood as younger kids.
“But after the accident he changed. It was pretty much right away.
“He started becoming physical with me. If he didn’t like what I cooked he’d have a fit and we’d end up in an argument.”
Long developed an insatiable hunger for sex and violence, something that eventually led Cindy to file for divorce in 1980.
After that apparent betrayal, Long went on the rampage.
Between 1980 and 1983 he became what’s now known as the Classified Ad Rapist.
Long would respond to an advert and, if the woman turned up alone, he would hold her at knifepoint then sexually assault her.
He committed 50 such acts without being snared by authorities.
In 1984, his attacks reached bloody new levels.
On May 13 of that year, 20-year-old exotic dancer Ngeun Thi Long was found naked, lying face down with her hands tied behind her back with rope and fabric.
She’d been stumbled upon by a group of kids.
Poor Ngeun’s legs had been forced wide apart and there was a gaping wound in her face. She’d died from strangulation.
Two weeks later the body of prostitute Michelle Denise Simms, 22, was discovered.
She, too, was nude, bound and gagged. Her throat had been slashed and her head had been bludgeoned with a blunt weapon.
Strands of distinctive red fibre found on both bodies told police the women had been moved from another location.
It also indicated they were dealing with a serial killer.
A third victim – factory worker Elizabeth Loudenback, 22 – soon followed. She was found in June, in an advanced stage of decomposition, having been strangled and dumped while fully clothed.
Two more women perished in October. The first, 18-year-old escort Chanel Williams, was found naked on a dirt road with a gunshot wound to the back of her neck.
And the body of Beth Dinsfriend, 28, was