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Thread: Oscar Ray Bolin, Jr. - Florida Execution - January 7, 2016

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    Oscar Ray Bolin, Jr. - Florida Execution - January 7, 2016


    Natalie Blanche Holley, 25


    Stephanie Collins, 17


    Teri Lynn Matthews, 26




    Summary of Offense:

    Teri Lynn Mathews was last seen alive on December 5, 1986. She was believed to have been abducted in the vicinity of the Land O’ Lakes Post Office, where she had a post office box. Her car was found in the parking lot of the post office, with the engine running and the driver’s door open. Her mail was found scattered on the ground. Her body was found raped, stabbed and bludgeoned to death. The investigation into Mathew’s murder uncovered no significant leads until the summer of 1990, when Danny Coby contacted Crime Stoppers in Fort Wayne, Indiana with information about the murder. Danny Coby was married to Cheryl Coby, the former wife of the defendant, Oscar Ray Bolin. Following the call made by her current husband, Cheryl Coby gave investigators a statement regarding the murder of Mathews, after which Bolin was indicted for her murder.

    Bolin was re-sentenced to death in Pasco County on December 28, 2001.

    Bolin was also convicted and sentenced to death for a second murder in Hillsborough County on July 31, 1991 (Circuit Court Case #90-11832). Upon direct appeal, his conviction and sentence were reversed, and a retrial was ordered. Bolin was again sentenced to death on June 4, 1999. On appeal, his conviction and sentence were reversed for the second time. In 2005 he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

    Bolin was convicted and sentenced to death for a third murder in Hillsborough County on October 11, 1991 (Circuit Court Case #90-11833). Upon direct appeal, his conviction and sentence were reversed, and a retrial was ordered. Bolin was again sentenced to death on June 4, 1999.

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    December 1, 2007

    TAMPA (AP) - Oscar Ray Bolin again was sentenced to death Friday.

    It was the eighth time he has received the ultimate penalty.

    Three times, Bolin was convicted and sentenced to death for three 1986 murders. All three sentences were overturned on appeal. After three more trials, and three more death sentences, appeals courts overturned the death sentences again.

    In 2001, Bolin received the death penalty a third time for the murder of 26-year-old Teri Lynn Matthews. The Florida Supreme Court has upheld that sentence.

    In 2005, after a third trial, Bolin was convicted of second-degree murder for the death of 25-year-old Natalie "Blanche" Holley. He was sentenced to life in prison.

    On Friday, Circuit Judge Barbara Fleischer sentenced Bolin to death for the murder of 17-year-old Stephanie Anne Collins. Bolin was convicted one year ago.

    As Assistant State Attorney Mike Halkitis walked from the courtroom Friday, a reporter asked if he was worried about future appeals.

    "No," he said. "I've had enough of them."

    Before imposing the sentence, Fleischer read unemotionally from a written sentencing order. She said that all of Bolin's previous crimes - including an escape attempt from a prison in Ohio and the abduction and rape of an Ohio woman - led her to her decision.

    After she read the sentence, Bolin rose from his seat calmly. He thanked his defense attorney, David Parry, shook his hand and was led away in handcuffs.

    In January 1986, Holley was abducted after she left work at Church's Chicken in North Tampa. Her stabbed body was found the next day in a Lutz orange grove.

    Ten months later, Collins disappeared from a shopping center parking lot in Carrollwood. Collins stopped by the pharmacy where she worked to ask her boss for extra hours. The Christmas holidays were approaching, and she hoped for more shopping money.

    After speaking to her boss, she was expected to head to choir practice but never arrived.

    Fleischer said Collins' beaten body was found on Dec. 5, 1986. Her skull was crushed to the point where parts were reduced to a powder.

    On the same day authorities found Collins' body, they recovered Matthews' body beside railroad tracks in Pasco County. The previous night, Matthews was abducted from the Land O' Lakes post office. She had been beaten, raped and stabbed, authorities said.

    At the time of Bolin's arrest in Florida, he was serving a 75-year-prison sentence in Ohio for the abduction and rape of a truck-stop waitress.

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    On July 1, 2010, Bolin was denied a direct appeal by the Florida Supreme Court.

    Opinion is here:

    http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/d.../sc08-1963.pdf

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    July 5, 2010

    Death sentence upheld

    The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday again upheld Oscar Ray Bolin Jr.'s conviction and death sentence for the 1986 murder of a Pasco County woman.

    Bolin had asked the court to overturn the conviction - his third in Teri Lynn Matthews' slaying - claiming his attorney was ineffective. A unanimous court rejected the appeal.

    Matthews' body was found wrapped in a wet sheet near railroad tracks off U.S. 41 in December 1986. The 26-year-old had been abducted from Land O' Lakes Post Office the night before. Investigators said she had been beaten, raped and stabbed.

    Bolin was charged in the early 1990s in the death of Matthews, as well as in the 1986 slayings in Tampa of Natalie Blanche Holley, 25, and Stephanie Collins, 17.

    At the time of his arrest, the former truck driver and carnival worker was serving a 75-year prison term in Ohio for rape, kidnapping and other charges.

    Bolin's first 2 convictions and death sentences in the Matthews' case - in 1992 and 1996 - were overturned on appeal because of issues involving jury selection and his former wife's testimony.

    In October 2001, he was sentenced to death a 3rd time for Matthews' murder. The high court previously rejected Bolin's initial appeal in that conviction.

    Bolin, 48, also is awaiting execution for the murder of Collins. His first 2 convictions in that case were overturned, but in 2007 he was sentenced to death a 3rd time for the high school student's slaying.

    Bolin is awaiting his 4th trial in the slaying of Holley. At the 1st 2 trials, he was found guilty of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to death. The state's high court overturned both convictions.

    At his 3rd trial, in 2005, a jury found him guilty of 2nd-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.

    But in 2009 a state appellate court ordered that Bolin be tried again in Holley's death, saying the trial judge improperly instructed jurors about the law they should follow.

    (Source: The Tampa Tribune)

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    Case 1

    Factors Contributing to the Delay in the Imposition of the Sentence:

    Twice the Florida Supreme Court has reversed Bolin’s death sentence, stemming from Circuit Court Case #91-521. Bolin was resentenced to death for a third on 12/28/01.

    Case Information:

    On 11/19/92, Oscar Ray Bolin filed a Direct Appeal in the Florida Supreme Court. In that appeal, Bolin argued that his spousal privilege had been violated with the admission of evidence concerning privileged communications between him and his former wife, Cheryl Coby. The trial court contended that the privilege had been waived by the taking of a discovery deposition of Cheryl Coby. Bolin argued that the trial court erred in failing to recognize that he had not waived this privilege, and as such, the information given at Coby’s deposition was erroneously admitted as evidence at trial. The Florida Supreme Court agreed. Another issue on appeal concerned a letter that Bolin wrote to an investigating detective prior to attempting suicide in 1991. The State argued that Bolin voluntarily waived his spousal privilege in that letter, but the issue was not raised during trial because the court had already deemed that Bolin waived his privilege in the discovery deposition. As such, there was insufficient evidence in the record for the Supreme Court to make a ruling as to the veracity of the voluntary waiver alleged by the State. The Supreme Court cautioned the trial court to closely examine the circumstances surrounding the sending of the letter and whether its contents constituted a voluntary consent to privileged information disclosed by Cheryl Coby. The Florida Supreme Court reversed Bolin’s conviction and sentence, and ordered a new trial on 02/09/95.

    On 10/09/96, following a retrial, Bolin was resentenced to death. On 11/22/96, Bolin filed a Direct Appeal of that decision in the Florida Supreme Court. In that appeal, he argued that the State Circuit Court erred in denying his motion for individual and sequestered voir dire of prospective jurors who were exposed to prejudicial pretrial publicity. The Florida Supreme Court reversed Bolin’s convictions and sentence of death on 06/10/99, and ordered a new trial.

    Following his second retrial on Circuit Court Case # 91-521, Bolin was resentenced to death on 12/28/01.

    On 01/07/02, Bolin filed a Direct Appeal in the Florida Supreme Court. In that appeal, he argued that the trial court wrongfully denied his voir dire cause challenges, that the trial court abused its discretion in replacing a juror with an alternate and that the trial court erred in accepting his waiver of the jury recommendation. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence of death on 02/05/04.

    On 06/30/04, Bolin filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, which was denied on 10/04/04.

    On 10/03/05, Bolin filed a 3.851 Motion with the Circuit Court, which was denied on 09/17/08.

    On 10/17/08, Bolin filed a 3.851 Motion Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court. On 07/01/10, the FSC affirmed the denial of the 3.851 motion.

    On 07/16/10, Bolin filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with the United States District Court, Eleventh Circuit, which is pending.

    Case 2

    Defendant was resentenced to life from his original death sentence.

    Case 3

    Case Information:

    Oscar Ray Bolin was sentenced to death on 10/11/91, after which he filed a Direct Appeal in the Florida Supreme Court on 11/08/91. In that appeal, Bolin argued that his spousal privilege had been violated with the admission of evidence concerning privileged communications between him and his former wife, Cheryl Coby. The trial court contended that the privilege had been waived by the taking of a discovery deposition of Cheryl Coby. Bolin argued that the trial court erred in failing to recognize that he had not waived this privilege, and as such, the information given at Coby’s deposition was erroneously admitted as evidence at trial. The Florida Supreme Court agreed. Another issue on appeal concerned a letter that Bolin wrote to an investigating detective prior to attempting suicide in 1991. The State argued that Bolin voluntarily waived his spousal privilege in that letter, but the issue was not raised during trial because the court had already deemed that Bolin waived his privilege in the discovery deposition. As such, there was insufficient evidence in the record for the Supreme Court to make a ruling as to the veracity of the voluntary waiver alleged by the State. The Supreme Court cautioned the trial court to closely examine the circumstances surrounding the sending of the letter and whether its contents constituted a voluntary consent to privileged information disclosed by Cheryl Coby. The Florida Supreme Court granted Bolin’s motion for rehearing, and issued a revised opinion on 02/09/95, reversing the convictions and sentence of death.

    Following a retrial, Bolin was resentenced to death on 06/04/99. On 06/14/99, Bolin filed a Direct Appeal of that decision in the Florida Supreme Court. In that appeal, he argued that the State Circuit Court erred in finding that he voluntarily waived his spousal privilege in a letter he wrote to an investigating detective prior to attempting suicide in 1991. In finding that Bolin waived this privilege, the trial court allowed the videotaped testimony of Cheryl Coby, which divulged information normally protected by the spousal privilege, to be admitted into evidence. The Florida Supreme Court agreed with Bolin that the letter in question did not constitute a voluntary waiver of his spousal privilege. As such, the Florida Supreme Court reversed Bolin’s convictions and sentence on 07/13/01, and ordered a new trial.

    Following a second retrial, Bolin was resentenced to death on 12/05/07. On 11/17/08, Bolin filed a Direct Appeal in the Florida Supreme Court. On 11/18/09, the FSC relinquished the case to the lower court. On 05/19/10, the FSC granted an extension of time to complete the relinquishment proceedings by 07/19/10. This case is currently pending.

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    Serial killer Oscar Ray Bolin faces fourth trial in Natalie Holley's slaying

    TAMPA — Seventy members of a jury pool were asked Monday if they had ever heard of the diminutive gray-haired man looking genially at them from the defense table.

    Only 13 of the prospective jurors recognized Oscar Ray Bolin Jr., 50, the convicted serial killer and rapist who has haunted the Hillsborough County Courthouse for two decades.

    The mother of 25-year-old Natalie Blanche Holley said she isn't surprised few remember how her daughter was fatally stabbed eight times in 1986 or that Bolin is on death row for killing two other young women.

    "It was a long time ago," said the victim's mother, also named Natalie, "and this is Florida."

    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.

    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.

    In the back of the courtroom, Bolin's wife, Rosalie, who left her prominent lawyer-husband to marry Bolin after working on his rape and murder cases, says she also waits for justice. She has doubts she ever should have married him but still believes he never hurt anyone.

    Rosalie met Bolin while working on his case as a mitigation specialist for the public defender's office. The mother of four divorced to marry the convicted killer, her in a lace wedding dress, him on speaker phone behind bars saying "I do" on national TV. That was 17 years ago.

    She helped defend him through the trials for the murder of Holley. She also helped defend him through convictions for the 1986 murder of Teri Lynn Matthews, 26, and convictions for the 1986 murder of 17-year-old Stephanie Collins.

    Monday, she helped scrutinize prospective jurors.

    The marriage never accomplished what she had hoped, she said. It was meant to be statement of "great personal sacrifice" that would bring attention to what she thought was a terrible injustice.

    It was never about infatuation, never about an attraction. "People thought the wrong thing."

    Her subsequent work as a death penalty opponent, as a respected mitigation specialist who was recruited by the Casey Anthony defense team, she said, all have been overshadowed by "that one personal decision."

    She will always be Mrs. Oscar Ray Bolin. She wouldn't say she shouldn't have married him. But if she had a do-over, she said, "Let's just say I'd tweak it."

    Bolin's current three defense attorneys are working pro bono. There's no estimate on what all the prosecutions have cost, but Rosalie Bolin says it has to be in the millions.

    His first conviction for Holley's murder was in 1991. He got the death penalty. It was overturned. He was reconvicted in 1999, and he got the death penalty again. That was overturned, too. Then in 2005, a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder. He was given a life sentence. But an appellate court criticized the judge's jury instructions, putting Bolin back in court this week before Hillsborough Circuit Judge Emmett Battles. The trial is expected to be finished by the end of the week.

    Rosalie Bolin said she can't envision her husband ever being executed. She can envision him one day going free. So far, he has beaten the odds.

    "It's not Oscar's fault he's here a fourth time."

    Natalie Blanche Holley's mother said she no longer hopes for justice: "We haven't gotten it for 25 years."

    http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/...laying/1225368
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    Jury to get murder case against Oscar Ray Bolin

    When a jury considers Thursday whether Oscar Ray Bolin Jr. killed 25-year-old Natalie Blanche Holley in 1986, Bolin stands to gain or lose almost nothing.

    Win or lose, he returns to death row.

    Bolin already has death sentences for the 1986 first-degree murders of Teri Lynn Matthews, 26, and Stephanie Collins, 17.

    He has been convicted three times and twice sentenced to death for the murder of Holley — but those sentences were lost on appeal. In this retrial, he is charged with second-degree murder.

    If convicted of that charge, Bolin faces a life sentence on top of his two death sentences.

    In his retrial this week, prosecutors presented taped 1992 testimony by his dead ex-wife, Cheryl Jo Coby, that he woke her at 2 a.m. Jan. 25, 1986, with blood on his sneakers and with a woman's purse. She had testified that she went with Bolin that night to wipe down Holley's car. She died in 1992 of diabetes complications after testifying.

    Jurors also heard from Bolin's cousin, who said Bolin confessed the murder to him during a car ride. And jurors were told about what was intended to be a suicide note Bolin wrote in jail. In it, he said his ex-wife told him how to dump Holley's body.

    Against that, defense attorneys presented Robert Anton, briefly a jail cellmate of Bolin's who is now serving a 30-year sentence for armed robbery and who told jurors that he'd been convicted of 15 felonies.

    Anton testified he had, coincidentally, known Holley. He said that sometime before her murder, he had seen her car at a house nearby where his brother lived. Anton said he was shooed away from the property by his now-deceased brother and a man named Eddie.

    He said Eddie was an "off-the-chain" character who enjoyed slaughtering pigs and cattle and would cut himself after using drugs.

    Anton said Eddie had blood on his clothes. He also said Eddie wore the same type of sneaker worn by Bolin, a $9 Traxx shoe from Kmart. But Anton said he left the property without seeing Holley.

    After also presenting testimony that no fingerprints of Bolin's were ever found, and that Bolin's ex-wife was given a "substantial" reward from Crime Stoppers — exact amount unknown — the defense rested.

    Jurors will hear closing arguments Thursday morning before Hillsborough Circuit Judge Emmett Battles, then begin deliberations.

    http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/...-bolin/1225727
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    Bolin is guilty in '86 slaying, gets life

    A jury took less than two hours to find Oscar Ray Bolin Jr. guilty Thursday in the stabbing death of Natalie Blanche Holley, and a judge then sentenced him to life in prison.

    This was Bolin's 10th murder trial and the fourth for the Holley case, which dates back to 1986.

    Bolin was transported to the trial from death row, where he was awaiting execution in two other 1986 murders in the Tampa area. Juries have repeatedly convicted Bolin and sentenced him to death numerous times, but appeals courts have overturned his convictions and sentences, leading to more trials.

    Although he was sentenced to death twice in Holley's murder, the third trial resulted in a conviction on a lesser charge of second-degree murder, taking the death penalty off the table. However, that conviction was overturned.

    Kathleen Reeves, the mother of one of Bolin's other victims, Teri Lynn Matthews, said she wasn't surprised by the verdict. Holley's mother could not come to the trial, but Reeves said she's determined to see Bolin put to death.

    "I'll be here," she vowed. "If I'm in my death throes, I'll still be around when he's executed. I'll make sure of it."

    She said she might talk to the governor to see if he can schedule an execution.

    "These trials are costing the state a lot," she said. "What does death row mean? It's a pretty cush life, evidently. He doesn't look much older. He gets all the medical and dental care or anything else that he needs. And he has a cell all to himself. He doesn't have to face the other guys in the prison."

    Reeves said the trials are "just a way for him to get out. … You can see him up there. He looks like he's in control of everything. And then they slap the bracelets on and his demeanor changes."

    Bolin's wife, Rosalie, wept after the verdict was announced and hugged his lawyers.

    Rosalie Bolin, who left her husband and children to marry him after she was assigned to his case by the public defender's office as a "mitigation specialist," didn't want to talk to reporters.

    All she would say is, "We worked really hard."

    Defense attorney Bjorn Brunvand said he agreed to represent Bolin free of charge because two people — one a state inmate — said separately that they heard a New York man confess to killing Holley. Brunvand said that information, combined with questions raised nationally about work by FBI lab technicians, is "why I took it because I thought maybe he didn't commit this murder," Brunvand said.

    Brunvand said that when defense attorneys tried to interview the New York man, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The prosecution persuaded the judge to prevent that testimony from being used in the trial.

    In closing arguments Thursday, Assistant State Attorney Chris Jensen told jurors the evidence points to a conviction for Bolin, who took numerous steps to cover up the crime — wiping down Holley's car, using a branch to brush away tire and shoe tracks outside her car and then washing his own car.

    "But try as he might, this defendant can't wipe away all the evidence in this case," Jensen said. "He could not outrun the facts. He could not outrun the evidence, the law or justice. You see the reach of justice is long. And in this case, Miss Holley, though dead, held a key, key piece of evidence in her right hand. Remember that hair that was found in her right hand at the scene."

    An FBI analysis concluded Bolin was among the 0.17 percent of Caucasians who fit the DNA profile of a hair found clutched in the victim's hand.

    And Bolin lived in a trailer with Holley's co-worker and met her about a month before she was killed.

    Bolin also was seen by a law enforcement officer with an unknown woman in a car near where the victim's car was later discovered. Bolin's car was also seen, and the officer ran the license plate, Jensen recalled.

    "It was this defendant, out of those 0.17 percent of Caucasians who woke his wife up sometime after 2 a.m. wearing bloody Trax tennis shoes," Jensen told the jury. "The Trax prints, remember, were taken in a plaster cast right outside the victim's car."

    Following the conviction, Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee ordered Bolin sent to death row immediately, saying he was "not to spend one more minute in the Hillsborough County jail system,'' said sheriff's Detective Larry McKinnon.

    http://www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-ne...ife-ar-394528/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    Bolin's direct appeal from his death sentence in 2007 was argued on the 1st of October. Briefs are here.

    http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/p...148/index.html
    http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/p.../oa10-12.shtml

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    OSCAR RAY BOLIN v THE STATE OF FLORIDA

    In today's opinions, the Florida Supreme Court AFFIRMED Bolin's conviction and sentence of death.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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