PART ONE OF OUR NEW CRIME SERIES
VICTIMS: (left to right from top) Ngeun Thi Long, Michelle Simms, Elizabeth Loudenback, Chanel Wlliams, Beth Dinsfriend, Kimberly Hopps, Virginia Johnson, Kim Swann, Vicki Elliot and Lisa McVey, who escaped discovered in an orange grove naked from the waist down, her hands and feet bound in the same tell-tale way as Long’s other victims.
She had also been raped and struck on the head before being strangled. Arrogant Long was acting with reckless abandon.
Former detective Gary Terry said: “We were in uncharted waters. We were coming up with nothing, hitting a dead end with every lead we were getting.
“The killer was not covering up his bodies. He wasn’t digging a grave then putting them in a hole.
“He’d kill them and then just throw them away.
“He wanted his victims to be found. And he wanted those who found them to be shocked by all the grotesque ways that they’d been displayed.”
Soon, the decomposed bodies of 22-year-old prostitute Kimberly Kyle Hopps and sex worker Virginia Lee Johnson, 18, were found in quick succession.
Virginia had been strangled before being dismembered, her body parts strewn across a field.
A month later, dancer Kim Swann, 21, was found dead just outside Tampa.
Long, apparently bored, then let his guard down.
After taking 17-yearold Lisa McVey, he subjected her to a horrific 26-hour ordeal, repeatedly raping her at his apartment, forcing her to perform sex acts on him and even making her shower with him.
Despite her predicament, knowing it was her only chance of escape, shrewd Lisa managed to gain Long’s trust.
Eventually he took her for a ride in his car, a distinctive red Dodge Magnum. He stopped, opened the door and simply told her: ‘ Take care’.
Lisa went straight to the police and told them where Long lived and what he looked like.
But, even as cops prepared to swoop, Long was out claiming one last victim – 22-year-old Vicki Elliot. He strangled her in his car before driving around with the corpse on the front seat, even stopping for fuel while showing off his grim trophy.
When he was finally snared days later, Long smirked: “Well, I guess you got me good.
“Yes, I killed them... all the ones in the paper. I did them all.
“I knew when I let Lisa go that it would only be a matter of time.
“I didn”t even tell her not to talk to the police or anything. I just didn”t care any more.
“I wanted to stop. I was sick inside.”
Long received two death sentences, 34 life sentences and an additional 693 years in prison. He will die strapped to an electric chair.
Lisa, the only victim who escaped his clutches, is now a INNOCENT TO GUILTY: Long as a boy and when arrested for murder spree serving Sheriff”s deputy, having vowed to protect women from people like Long.
You should also spare a thought for Long”s loyal mother Louella, who is still utterly distraught at what became of the happy, smiling child she once knew.
In a heartbreaking letter to her son – himself a father of two – upon his conviction, Louella wrote: “It’s just all so unreal.
“I guess I’ve never really convinced myself you could have done these things, even though I know you did.
“It’s impossible, seeing you with people and living with you, and knowing how you were with your children.
“I can still see you taking them out with the dog and going to the lake.
“What happened to that ordinary person?
“Oh son, don”t let yourself become so hardened that no-one can reach you.
“Anything I ever did that hurt you or humiliated you, I”m so sorry for. I”m so sorry for everything I didn”t do that I should have, and things I did that I shouldn’t have.”
Long is still appealing his sentence while showing no remorse for what he did.
In a recent TV interview he laughed: “When I saw them walking down the street, it was like A, B, C, D – I pull over, they get in, I drive off, pull a knife or gun or whatever, tie ’em up, take ’ em out, and that would be it.
“They all went exactly the same way.”