Serial killers and true crime

It is the 10th time he has been on trial for attacking and killing three women in Tampa: Holley, Stephanie Collins and Terri Matthews.

The former truck driver has been convicted nine times, but he’s been retried three times in the Matthews and Collins cases.

In 1995, public defender Rosalie Martinez was married to a prominent lawyer, with whom she had four young daughters. Then she met Oscar Ray Bolin, Jr.

The convicted serial killer was already on death row in Florida when she visited him in his cell to talk about his case.

‘I felt his isolation, his confinement, his loneliness. It affected me because I felt the same way. And it left me breathless,’ she told the L.A. Times.

She accepted that he had pleaded guilty to a gunpoint rape, but was adamant he was no killer, and was desperate to prove his innocence.

Because raping someone at gun point is such a far leap from killing someone. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Martinez became estranged from her family and quit the public defender’s office after jail officials said she had sex with Bolin in his cell.

Yes, she quit her job before she was fired for having sex with a rapist and killer in his jail cell! Beyond stupid! This is groupie actions.

In 1996, the pair married over the phone, whiles she was in a Gainesville, Florida apartment and he was in jail, she told the L.A. Times.

She stood by his side and helped defend him through the trials for the murders of Natalie Holley, Terri Matthews and Stephanie Collins.

Despite a public showing of affection at his early re-trials, she has since expressed doubts that she should have married him.

She told the Tampa Bay Times that the marriage was not out of attraction, but was a ‘great personal sacrifice’ to bring attention to what she believed was a terrible injustice.

I am calling Bull here, she choose to have sex with him in his cell, which meant her giving up job and destroying her family. Now all of a sudden she is trying to play the role of some kind of  martyr??? Bull!

Asked if she would do it again, she said: ‘Let’s just say I’d tweak it.’

But she maintains his innocence: ‘It’s not Oscar’s fault he’s here a fourth time,’ she said at the jury selection on Monday.

 

Three previous convictions and two death sentences for Holley’s murder did not survive appeals. Bolin has been brought back from death row for a fourth attempt at a Holley conviction that sticks. It’s no longer a death penalty case. The charge is second-degree murder.

It’s not unusual to prosecute death row inmates for other crimes that don’t carry the death penalty. Reasons include the unpredictable outcome of many death penalty cases, the heinous nature of the offenses and the desire for justice on behalf of the victims’ families.

 

 

As far as Bolin, in case you are worried about him:

Although Bolin has developed diabetes on death row, he looked fit and groomed Monday. He has physically outlasted Holley’s mother, who sat through his previous trials, as did mothers of Bolin’s other two victims. Holley’s mother is now ailing and uses a wheelchair, unable to attend trial No. 4.

She had always hoped for the death penalty.

The rest of this article is here.

 

Damn shame he is in better shape than the mother of the girl he killed.