Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
True crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast was recorded on. You can call Lisa.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
McVeagh many things, victim, survivor, officer, but when you hear
her full story in her very own words, there is
one thing you will definitely.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Know her as a total boss.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
To understand why you have to just for a moment,
put yourself in her shoes. Abused from the age of two,
Lisa was placed into foster care before being sent to
live with her grandmother, where her grandmother's boyfriend also abused
her for years, sometimes while holding the cold steel of
a gun barrel to her head.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
She is at this point.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Simply surviving her life, going to school while working at
the local donuts store. This teenage girl has been through
it physical violence, mental trauma, sexual assault. Then, on the
night of November three, p nineteen eighty four, as she's
riding home from work, a complete stranger yanks her from
the back of her bike and kidnaps her. For the
(01:11):
next twenty six hours, Lisa is tied up, blindfolded, and
brutally raped over and over again. She's not physically strong
enough to fight off her attacker, but Unbeknownst to the
man who abducted her, Lisa will outsmart him in ways
that would not only lead to his arrest, but that
would link him to the deaths of multiple other women
(01:34):
and make Lisa realize that she was possibly one of
the only survivors of an escalating serial killer. But despite
being able to escape the clutches of a depraved and
violent man, she knows she has another waiting for her
when she gets home, and a police force who doesn't
believe a seventeen year old could possibly retain so much
information on her attacker, not when she should be out
(01:57):
of her mind scared. But Lisa has a superpower, the
ability to remember and recall detail, and sadly, the life
experi vrins that would make her able to manipulate the
violent man who took her. I'm Claire Murphy and this
is True Crime Conversations, a podcast exploring the world's most
(02:20):
notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the
most about them.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Lisa's story is harrowing.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
She was abused to the point where she thought the
only way to end the suffering would be to end
her own life, and she does talk about being suicidal today,
So Please listen with care and reach out to Lifeline
if you need help. You can find them on thirteen
eleven fourteen. Lisa is very good at retelling her story.
She's been using it to help people for many years now.
(02:47):
But even now, after a movie's been made about her
ordeal and many news outlets have covered this crime, we
are still hearing new things about what she did in
order to make sure the man who she would eventually
watch die at his execution did not go unpunished. Lisa
McVeigh explains how watching police dramas on TV inspired her
(03:08):
to leave a trail of evidence that no defense lawyer
could talk away. How she paid so close attention to
the route her kidnapper took her on she could retrace
her steps while being blindfolded. How she tricked her abductor
into thinking she was a friend. How she listened to
his sad, pathetic reasoning for doing what he did and
made him feel like she was an ally, all while
(03:30):
plotting to bring him down. This is one woman's story,
Lisa's story, but her epic tale of survival and the
ability to bring herself back from the brink to not
only survive but thrive, is a lesson we can all
learn from.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
She joins us.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Now, Lisa, thank you so much for joining us today.
You have got such an epic story, like your entire
life from start to now. There's so much that's happened
to you, and you have done yourself that we are
hoping to unpack some of that today.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
But I guess the first I want to ask you,
is it super weird that someone made a movie about
a part of your life?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Like? Is that weird?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
It was about getting a message out that you can
persevere any adversities in your life, and I needed to
get that message out to other women that at Eureka's moment,
you could be strong, you know, if it makes sense,
I turned my adversity of my childhood into strength and
courage and bravery and just wanting to live life, happy
(04:39):
and joyful and have that peace of mind that I
still have life, I still have.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
You know.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Every I have said it through the years and different shows, documentaries, interviews. God,
you know, God has gotten me through everything in my life.
And at the moment of that time where I had
been kidnapped, I pray and the first thing I said, God,
(05:09):
whatever you do, don't let me die.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
And I think I carry that on.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
To fulfilled and blessed life, and I want to continue
to get out there and reach out to women, whether
it's you know, an abusive relationship, or maybe another woman
has been victimized as it, you know, being kidnapped, whatever
case it be, you could be a woman in a
bank that's being robbed. You're still a victim that you
(05:37):
can go on. But the key is you have to
want and choose to. It's a big difference, it's a
big step, but you got to take that step into
faith and go for it.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
And I surely did. Well.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Can you take me to the day that Bobby jo
Lung snatched you off the back of your back? Where
were you at on that particular day? Because you had
come from a pretty traumatic place before this traumatic thing
happened to you, So where was your head out on
the day that this happened to you?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
The day that where my mind was. I was already
being abused sexually at my grandmother's house.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
She had a boyfriend. They've been together for a little while.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
I had been living with them for at this time,
oh gosh, almost four years, and I was trying to
go to high school.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
I was in high school, missed a lot of days.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
I mean, it's classic right that they pitted me as
a poster child of child abuse. You know, I was
the one that very introvert looked down when I walked
and didn't make eye contact. I wore, you know, frumpty clothes.
You know I was being abused, right. I was trying
to be everything to myself. I ended up working on
donut shop because I could say the name right, Christpa
(06:54):
Kreme donut Shop, Yum, the best donors ever. So that
particular day was November two, nineteen eighty four, I was
on my way to work on a bicycle. That's my
mode of transportation, and it was less than three miles
each way home, so it was quite a distance on
(07:16):
a bicycle, but I did it. Christoph Kreme Donut Shop
was my safe haven. I latched onto the manager, I guess,
and he just was It was like a father figure
that I'd never had a father. I think he knew
perhaps maybe something was going at home, but he could
never pinpoint it. And he always took care of me there.
(07:39):
It's like I could do no wrong. It was incredible,
But that particular day. My grandmother had moved out, maybe
six months to maybe a year prior to my abduction.
So leading up to that day, I was left alone
with this monster, my growner's boyfriend, to fend myself.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
And he still was I'm going to say the word
he was raping me.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
No title, florid status, choose state statues say sexual assault.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
People say, they say, SA, it's rape. It is where
it is.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
He was a pedophile, my grandmother was a pedophile.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
It is what it is.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
But most of the time he would rate me, look
at it two three times a day sometimes and he
would use a gun at gunpoint.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
So I was tired.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
I was alone.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I had known a.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Turn to I couldn't even tell my own mom, my
own family was going on.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
You know. I didn't want to harm brought to my family.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
He would threaten he would harm my family if I
told anybody, so I kept him to myself. Before I
went to work, I actually sat down and I jotted
down a little note. If you find this note, you
know I would be dead. I basically what my own
suicide note. I was tired of living. In this little note,
I said I had been being a sexual abused and
(08:59):
all that I was tired of living.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
I didn't think I had anywhere to turn to.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
So I got I stuck foot an envelope through in
my little George at my bedroom, and I proceeded to
ride to work, go to work, and I remember that
night was so.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
It was different.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
It was so.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
I was at peace because I knew.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Do you feel like you'd found a way to end it?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yes, I was going to shoot and kill myself because
I knew this.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
This man had guns all over the house.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
My purple chair at the house, my home life, so
perfect opportunity, right, So I get to work.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
I'm just I'm just happy.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
I remember, I could feel like I'm about to be
free from all the abuse I was having.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
And you know, in high.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
School, they will send police to the school. Shot these
investigators to the school because neighbors kind of caught on
something bad was going on. But I will always deny
it again in fear of retaliation against my own family,
and that so much I loved my family. Right, So
the time came, as I don't know, but I worked
from two to like nine. You know, labor lawls even
(10:10):
back in the eighties, there's still labor laws for kids
under eighteen, you know, because under eighteen state of Florida,
you're still considering.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
A kid because you're only seventeen at this stage, right, right.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
So my boss comes to me and he goes, hey,
would she mind could you work or another shift? And
this shift was taken from nine to seven hour shift.
I'm like, I'd have to call home and ask my
dad because at that time, anytime people would see me,
I was to prefer my grandma's boyfriend as my father,
so no one would catch on something that was going
(10:42):
on behind closed doors in this dark, gloomy house.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Dark you know, it was a.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Prison basically, so too much of my surprise, he agreed
to be careful coming home. Okay, And this time my
grandmother still was not living back there. She was still gone,
and I ended up helping him close and I was
on a bicycle. I did have someone asked to give
(11:07):
me a ride home, which is one of my co workers,
but I declined because I didn't want any trouble. If
I was with anybody and they bring me home, I'd
be interrogated by my grandma's boyfriend or my grandmother and
he would beat me. Why was I out with a guy?
It was it was a grown man. It was, you know,
he was looked up for my safety. God bless his heart.
(11:27):
And I, you know, decided to jump on my bike
and ride home. And I always took a certain route
and the streets. Christmas Kreme Donut shop is on the
area of Florida Avenue and Waters Avenue, North Tampa, and
I would ride down westbound on Waters to a street
called Rome. But something start with me. I don't know
(11:51):
if it was a car or buy him blue a horn.
I don't know why. I felt uncomfortable about that. I
had heard about a serial killer, but like we're all say,
it can't happen to us, So that was back in
my mind.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
It was.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I had even actually forgotten about, not really seeing anything
of it. So I decided to take one street over,
thinking maybe someone was following me. So I went to
the next street over. I got halfway down the block
to come up to a road called Sly Avenue, and
then a German shepherd came out of the dark and
start chasing me. Chased me back out to the Waters
Avenue and I proceeded to continue to go back the
(12:31):
same route I would go home every night. I continued
to travel down Rome going southbound. You've seen the movies
were roads sometimes like like there's tunnels off trees and
so beautiful. Well that's how when you pass Roman fly
and you're going southbound, there's trees that look like a tunnel.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
It's absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
But at night it makes it difficult through street lights
because they blocked the street lights and you got those
pink fluorescent low lights. So as I'm getting to Rome
and sly now I knows as a church on the
left or on the southeast corner and nothing anything of it,
And there's a park on the west side of the
road south Southwest Baseball Park was a fence and three bases,
(13:15):
a home plate. That's what it was back then. Now
it's a huge fraternal police park and all that stuff.
But I noticed that van had was park parallel to
the park, right on the same side of the park,
And I thought to myself, what if someone jumps out
and grass me there, Because now I'm looking straight thinking
it's a dark down there.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
So you actually thought that might happen in your mind
as you're going home that night.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yes, So then I looked over to my left and
I see this car and in the parking lot of
the church parking lot. I don't know what it was.
It struck to be odd to me the way it
was parked.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
All your spidery senses are tingling at these points.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Right the front the car was facing north, in the
rear of the car was facing south. And I noticed,
you know, a white minal top or maroon car. And
it's dark, but the parking lot church had lights, and
the parking lot it wasn't cement or asphalt, it was gravel.
So I turned my head to proceed to go forward.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
All the while I'm thinking this is going to be it.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
I'm going home and I'm done, happy, go lucky. And
the next thing I know, I turned to the right
and just as I passed the van. The van was
a white Volkswagen van and the front of the van
was facing south right and the back of the van
was facing north. And I'm thinking, when someone jumps out
the back of the van, And just as I passed
(14:36):
the front of the van, I looked back to the
road and that's when I was just I'm incredible strength
of I thought it was three guys that just tore
me and ganked me off my bike. I'm thinking there's
three guys and end up being one guy. I started
screaming and I said, whatever you do. I said, God,
whatever you do, just don't kill me. And that's I
(14:57):
said that. After he put this still barrel of a
gun to my left temple.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
I already knew what that was.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
I was so used to it, and I said, whatever
you do, don't kill me, Do whatever you want. He
drags me across the street. My bike is left in
the street. I could even hear the sounds of the
wheels of the bike. I could still hear today. The
spokes just click click click click, you know, they stolelessly rolling.
Dragged me to the car and I'm kind of facing downward.
(15:23):
He's behind me, has me with this arm, his right arm,
and in the minute, I said, wait a minute, I
I'm going to fight for my life. I had something
left down in me that I had to fight. But
I had to fight smart. I had to fight calmly,
and I had to show whoever this person was, compassion
(15:45):
to show him that I was a very compassionate person
and that I wasn't just anybody he was going to
take off the street. I was going to be different.
I knew at home, if I had raised my voice,
if I had tried to hit my grandmother or my
grandma's boyfriend, I will get the tar beat.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Out of me. Right, I had to cuddle him.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
I had to do all that so sense my home,
my horrific home life, prepared me for what's going to
happen for the next twenty six hours. He throws me
to the car from the driver's side. Then I said,
before I got in the car, I got I remember
this car looks like I remember the back wheel the
driver's side, you know, like you've a flat tire and
(16:25):
you stop and you tire back on when you put
it on backwards, and the other tire was white.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Wall had a white you know ring around the tire.
Got in, I saw white leather seats he had it.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Tell me about that big of a knife in a sheath,
like a like a hunting knife.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
He had that there.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
I saw that, like a like a light brown kind
of tannish sheath. Now I'm remembering all this. I'm also remembering,
wasn't I going to go home and kill myself?
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Not today.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
I wasn't going to allow one person to take my life,
because no one's going to take that from me. I
don't care what you do to me. This is going
to be my decision. Right. So, so tired was going
on home. So he orders me closes the door. He
orders me to keep my eyes closed. He orders me
to take my clothes off everything. I had a Krispy
(17:17):
Kream shirt, you know, has a lower Christopher creme on it,
white pants. I remember having these wedge shoes all away on.
There were wedges that were brown. We had to wear
certain shoes there so you don't slip on the floor
in the back doing.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
The donuts and stuff.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
And then he proceeds to tie me up, assuming at
that time of ligatures, maybe I've like torn bed sheets.
I don't know what they were. But the minute he
went to go put a blindfold on me, I'm like,
I can't lose my sight. I don't know what made
me think of this, but I did this, and I said,
you've got to tighten your jaw. So take a you
(17:50):
take a piece of string, ball your fest browl tight
tie the string and release your hand. The string becomes
a little loose. Same concept with the blindfold. Praise God,
it allowed me to be able to see beneath the blindfold,
So if I would be sitting back, I could see
bits and pieces.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
So like you're looking like down your nose kind of
you can see at the bottom.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Yeah, yes, But when he reclined the seat, I could
see for recent lakes on the highway. I can see,
you know, I could just see certain things or hear things.
After your time met with the blindfold on, he said,
if you show me a good time, I won't kill you.
Whatever you tell me do, I'm going to do it.
He's got the gan and i'll obviously.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
The big knife.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
My question here for you, though, is like, how how
do you think like that when like for the majority
of us, we're going to be in like full final
flight mode, panic mode, right, and that overrides those kind
of logical thoughts, right? How do you sift away the
panic and focus in on the logistics.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
I imagine myself going through was how what I was
already going through at home. I had to remind myself
even at my home sleep with one eye open, but
I had to remain calm. This guid meant business. I
had to stay calm no matter what it took, no
(19:11):
matter what he did to me, didn't make it right,
but I have stayed calm for me. I think I
had already disassociate myself with the fact that he was
going to rape me. I knew that, but it was again,
it was nothing new to me. I had already been
raped at home. I had a childhood of rate when
I was a little girl at the age of two,
(19:32):
spent five years in foster care, you know. So I
have all gone through abuse most of my life, most
of my childhood. So it was nothing new about it.
Just a different person. What's one more bad guy. Let's
appease him, Let's do what you guys do to get
out of life. Let's lie whatever you're going to do.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Like that is So that is such an awful thought, though,
isn't it that you have been prepared for the worst
of them?
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Like that is it's I mean, it's saved your life, yes,
and it put this guy behind buzz right, But like
at the same time, like, how awful for this girl
to be that prepared for the worst of humanity?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Right? So, you know, it took a lot of strength,
just when I didn't think I have any strength left.
I had to dig deep down in the pit of
my stomach and just says you're going to do this.
This person is not going to kill you. I wasn't
going to him the chance the opportunity to so at
that moment, he was telling me I was going to
sho him a good time, and then he forced me
(20:33):
to perform oral sex on him. I'm gonna have to
say it. It's that's what happened. At that point, he
pulled me back from my hair, pulled me back, he
didn't complete his transaction, and asking me questions how old
are you? Of course I lied, I'm nineteen. You have
a boyfriend, Yes, I live with my boyfriend. And he goes, well,
(20:53):
your boyfriend's a lucky guy who you know? So I'm
thinking of mind oh, but anything I can say to
redirect him, to show him I wasn't just another prostitute
or or another person he kidnaped off the road, that
I was actual human being with a life.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Not knowing the life I had.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
He didn't know the life I had, so then he
proceeded to drive off the church parking lot. Mind you,
I had been riding a bicycle for four years back
and forth to work. It was two different locations, one
downtown and one on Florida Avenue. So I knew. I
was very focused and I know my sense of direction.
So he left the parking lot. He took a right.
(21:35):
He had it back northbound, traveled northbound on Row or Sly,
and then the light which is Roman Sly. He took
a right and started heading eastbound. And I knew exactly
where we're going. We're going to head to the Interstate.
We get on the interstate, and the reason why I
know is the interstate because of course I can't see
anything just yet, so I don't want him to see
that I can see. I don't want him to the opportunity.
(21:55):
I mean, he saw me. He probably could have punched
my lights out, knocked me out, you know, but I
want I had to stay stay alert.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
I had to stay.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Alert at village.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
It for me.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
So he climbed the seat back as if yeah, it's
three o'clock in the morning, but people can still see
us in the car. The windows were down, so I
can tell the difference of the velocity of the wind change,
how fast it was going, and the fruorescent lights on
the interstate. We were on the interstate probably a good
ten to fifteen minutes. We get off the Interstate again,
(22:26):
Central direction. We're still heading eastbound. I have no clue
we're at I mean none. He pulls into a parking lot,
and you know, if you're laying on the ground, you
can see the bottom of the leaves or trees, or
when I'm reclining, I can see back light of real
dim fluorescent street lights. And I saw leaves. I said,
this is it. He's going to rate me. He's going
(22:48):
to kill me. We're now in the woods. So then
I hear him he stops the car. I can also
all the way out. I'm sorry them back up on
the way out there too. I could hear like the
car needed a tune up. That was very important to me.
I knew he needed a tune up in the car,
but I kept seeing the clock. There was a clock
on the dashboard. I was leaning back. It was like
green fluorescent. But I kept having the fluorescent lights on
(23:12):
and say, you know, you're on vacation and your husband
whoever you're driving, and you're trying to sleep in the light.
You just can't sleep because the passing lights. So I'm like,
what is that on the dashboard? I as the keen
detective that I can be. I loved watching crime shows
when I was little, I loved him Magnet Pi, Airwolf.
I don't know if you remember. Air was the helicopter
(23:33):
civilian helping the cops Hawaii five, Oh, those kind of shows.
I was very intrigued with law. Then the light there
was a light piercing off a dashboard like the glove box,
and I'm like, what is that?
Speaker 4 (23:47):
What is that fauna? And it came to me.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
It showed magnum magni Pi. So from then forward, anything
I can remember, smell, taste here, touch anything, I would
relate it to something already knew. I would compartmentalized it.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
In my mind, created like a filing system everything that
you come across right.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Right, It was at blank canvas, but I had to
fill the canvas stuff and I had to fill that
file drawer up. So in case I got out alive,
I want to catch this guy, right, I mean, as
you maybe I was being a deputy at that time,
not realizing being a plete. I don't know, you know,
just was fighting for myself. So like I said, we
amp in this where the trees are, this is it.
(24:29):
And I hear him say get dressed. He nudged the
gun on my side to get dressed. It came him
kind of odd, right, like get dressed. He's got the gun. Well,
as he's getting out of the car, I can kind
of see a silhouette backdrop of him, but I can't
can't let him know I can see well that moment
I realized he's going to rape me and am on
(24:49):
my period. And yes, I'm going to say it on air.
Let's be realistic. I ripped my tampon out. What better
blood match? I threw aneath the car seat. I mean,
I rammed up beneath the car seat. In the movie,
it dictates that I bit my finger and put it
on the seat. I think it's for audience, but let's
(25:09):
get real. I'm a very real I'm very authentic. It
was my blood match. Who thinks about the age seventeen?
Not even twenty four hours before it, I wrote my
suicide note, right.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
That's incredible that you had that full sight.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
So it's incredible that I had that with all to
remember that. My concern too, was he raised me, and
that tampons to me, what if it hurts me from
having a kid in the future. I mean, I'm seventeen
thinking of this, right, So he proceeds to get me.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Out of the car.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Now I'm going to walk towards towards trees, and I
can feel that we're eastbound, like when he pulled it again,
sense of direction. We pull in and we're facing eastbound.
And next thing I know, he redirects me to a door,
and underneath I can see another flyingfold and I could
see the silver handover door. I can see it's white.
I could feel the door. It's one pane glass where
(26:01):
they put those little pieces that make eight little windows. Yeah, right,
the dividers. So he goes open the door, open the door,
and now I see carpet.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
I'm like, okay.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
The carp was predominantly green with black specks, red specks,
yellow specks, white specks.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
I remember this wooden handrail.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
We've built these steps in Every single step I count
until I got the top floor was nineteen. The movie
says twenty one numbers, right, Yeah. I wanted to count
those steps to see how many steps I have to
skip to get my ass out of there to go
for help. That didn't happen. So as soon as we
got on the platform, I guess what goes the nineteenth
(26:40):
floor nineteenth step, we make a quick left and a
quick right. And now know he's white, He's Caucasian. He's
left hand it because he held the gun in his
left hand. Now I see a black revolver. I know
it's a revolver. I've been around guns. I know what
guns look like.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me, clam Murphy.
I'm speaking with Lisa McVeagh, one of the only survivors
of serial killer Bobby Joe Long. Next, Lisa describes what
she took notice of when she was taken to his home.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
He opens the door, and the first thing I noticed
I smell the apartment. Smell like he's just been painted,
and almost like he rented this apartment just to do
his dirty deeds, if that's what you want to call it.
He proceeds to walk in close the door. He makes
the stand in this room, and I kind of look
(27:37):
over a little bit and I can tell we're in
the bedroom. I can almost see a bed. So he
orders me to undress. I'm not My ligature is all
off yet, my blindfold's not off yet. I take take
my clothes off, and I don't know, somewhere between him
abducting me to the apartment. I gained his trust because
(27:59):
I can hear the sounds of bullets falling into like
a ten you know those ten trash cans you have
like in a man's cave in our office, or a drawer,
and I could hear the sound of bullets falling into
a drawer or a can. He proceeds to walk me
to the bathroom, removes the blindfold, removes letures, and puts
me in the shower, Like, what the what the happen
(28:21):
to my hair? My hair is co down on my waist,
I mean still, it's happened to my back now. But
my hair is very long, but I always had it
clipped up in a clip because you had to wear
a hair net and have your hair up at work.
And so with that, he proceeds to get in the shower.
He grabs me and hugs me. I'm like, what's that?
(28:42):
What's up to this guy?
Speaker 4 (28:43):
You know, it's almost.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
I think he was trying to live out a woman
and man.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Oh, like a girlfriend.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Yeah, it's like a girlfriend fantasy, like you know. He
tells me to keep my eyes shut, not going to happen.
So I start looking around and I see its white
tile subway tile, the medium sized ones. I'm trying to
find a window. No window, lucky me, right, no one know.
But when he pulled me to and tells became, my
eyes closed. But now I know he's got brown hair
(29:12):
because I opened my eyes up to see his hair
short cut, very clean cut, like he just got a haircut.
Proceeds to get me out of the bathroom, and that's
when the first attack happened. He brutally raped me on
the bathroom floor because when he threw him on the
floor to rape me, he realized I was on my
period and it enraged him. Why didn't tell him you're
on your periods? Screaming out me, I'm thinking to myself,
(29:35):
you know, my boyfriend or husband, Why do I need
to tell you?
Speaker 4 (29:38):
You know?
Speaker 3 (29:39):
But I just kept pleading for him to stop. Please,
I'm sorry. I meant to tell you. I just forgot
I was scared. Whatever it took to appease him. And
then he proceeds to walk me after the vital attack,
back into the bedroom, puts the blindfold back on. And
every time he took the blindfold off and put it
on or put it back on, I would do that
hand method with my jaw so I can see it
(30:00):
see beneath the blindfold. So when he got back in
the hips in the bathroom for something, but I could
see through my blindfold. I can see I don't know
if he's in their leopards, but it was like leopard prints,
paintings and pictures on walls. And I stand alone, fan
like a like a box fan. And then he got
me to the bed. I didn't know it was a waterbed,
so naturally when he pushed down the bed, I almost
(30:22):
fell off, like whoa made lay down, and he crawled
over me and drug the firearm across my stomach. He
goes gets the sleep. Don't don't then things stupid? You
think I want to sleep. Now, I'm gonna try to
look up on them a blindfold and see if I
can see anything. He must have had the window cover
or something, because it was always dark in there. I
remember seeing a clock, its reflucked. It was red, the
(30:44):
numbers were red. I was trying to see if there
was a phone there. I couldn't see any phone. The
movie shows I called tried to call nine one. Theatrics
never tried to call nine one one. Now I was
gonna put my life in jeopardy and have him kill me.
So all through the night it was. It was awful.
I won't discuss the ways he raped me, but you
(31:05):
can only imagine every which way he did it hurts.
He would hit me. I got to talk to him
one time and I asked himself, why are you doing
this to me? And his answer was his reply was ferbatim.
I'm getting back at women in general. Apparently he had
a broken relationship and because of that girl, he's getting
back in a women in general. And I'm thinking, so he's
(31:25):
adopting a raping girls. I'm not putting two two together
yet that he was a serial killer. Why would you
think that? Right? So, at one point, you know, I
had that Brett was stole in my hair after he
actually bathed me in the shower, I wrapped my bread
out and throw to the bed because his hair matched
my hair was still attached to it. Again, I got
(31:47):
that from watching mcguiver or crime shows or Magnie pre
I won those shows.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
If ce as I was around back then, I feel
like you would have been the star.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
It's like and it's like and now now you get older, well, yeah,
your hair naturally falls out. Anyways, right, so I lost count.
I can't tell you how many times I never thought
a human being could rape someone.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
So many times I lost count.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
I couldn't. I mean over and over four or five,
ten times. It was. It was horrible.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
And even through all of that, you never got to
the point where you gave up. You still really convicted
that you are going to survive this and you're going
to take this guy down.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
I did not have time to give up. The time
was the essence. I did not have time to give up.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
That wasn't me.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
I'm not a quitter. I'm a fighter. But I had
to fight smart.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
I had. I had streets smart to me. I had,
you know, abuse in my background. I use that basically.
It's reverse psychology. I guess you want to say. At
one point, he got up, got me, dressed, got me.
I'm assuming the living room. That same day after the
abduction was hours like was like eleven o'clock at night,
Airwolf was on the news.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
He sat me on the couch again.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
I'm blindfolded, store ligatures on my ankles, on my hands,
my wrists, and a newsbreak comes on and it says
seventeen year old Lisa Rhodes. Well, my grandma's boyfriend's last
name is Rhodes, so say itself instead of saying my
real name, Lisa McVeigh. When I heard that news break,
he sandwich down in front of me in a pop
Soda Pop.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
I don't drink soda today. I don't eat balognea.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Today. I couldn't eat because I'm thinking, what if he
poison the food. I mean, right, I was dramatic, maybe,
but I don't want to take a chance of drinking that
next thing he poisoned me. But when it came on
the newsbreak, come on, it became so surreal. Something he
is looking for me. Now it's going to get it's
going to get deep. I started to profusely cry. He
(33:46):
comes up, puts the gun to my temple, goes please please.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
He's yelling at me.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
He goes, damn it, don't make me kill you. I'm like,
don't make me kill you. Ah, I can use that.
So he's not planning to kill me. I knew that
right that moment. I knew he wasn't going to kill me.
So I had to think, mark on my feet at
any given moment, could he have a chance to kill me? Sure?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
So did you think that way, because that sentence made
you think, Okay, he is not planning to kill me.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
He doesn't want to kill me.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
That he is he's looking for a reason to kill you,
or looking for a motivation to kill you.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
And that hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Has it happened yet? I didn't fight him. I didn't
physically fight him. I never yelled at him. I did
have a conversation with him.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
I said, you know again, why why are you doing me?
He told me he's getting back to women in general.
But after that incident, he got back in the bedroom
and by this time I got to use the bathroom.
I have to go pee, right and he wanted to
say no. And I could tell, just a sense of
him that he was a very clean cut for next door.
(34:54):
There was no way he was getting me pee in
the bed because I was I had a pee so bad.
So he gets to the bathroom, he goes, you got finance.
It's like I sat in the toilet. I can't I
make it. I'm birthday suit, the whole work, I cannot pee.
You stand there when this managed to rake me over
and over and over again, I needed my privacy.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
He gave me my privacy and he shut the door.
You got five.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Minutes and that was it. Your fingerprints are your identity.
It laid everything back to you. I start printing fingerprints.
I took the toilet cover, put my fingerprints on your there,
underneath the toilet seat, all over the face of the toilet,
the shower curtain, prints on the shower, the tiles. He
had another stupid leupper print whatever chitah in the bathroom.
(35:41):
But under my blind floor, I kept seeing these sneakers.
I'm like, what is that, and then realizing right before
he busts the door down, I'm like, oh, it's a chicken.
Well turned out to be chicken. It was the old
kangaroo line they first came out, So the blue stripes
on east side the shoe and the outline of the
of the kangaroo, it was the kangaroo line.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
I'm telling them.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
The policemust thought it was crazy, and I said, he's
got a pair of sneakers with chicken on it. And
it taught to be the kangaroo line. But I was
right about it. And at one time ride the shower,
I forgot to say back up a little bit. He
actually having draw my hair too with the hair dryers.
Now my fingerprints on the hair dryer, medicine cabinet, the mirror,
the back of the mirror. I didn't want to put
too much on the mirror because I was thinking to myself,
(36:21):
he'll see.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
My finger of friends here, putting any places that aren't
obvious concealed.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Ye, So if he had decided to kill me, at
least they knew I was trying to fight for my life.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Next, what happened when Bobby Joe Long let Lisa go
and she has to run for her life.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
So lasted until next morning, almost four o'clock in the morning.
The rapes continued. It was I'm telling you what, it
was horrific, But again it was nothing I hadn't already
been through. I mean, the guy that was raping me
at home wasn't my dad, he was another man.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
So it came to he asked me.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
He woke up, got me dressed, put me in my
pants for work. But I guess my shirt, my white
shirt was too dirty. I don't know, but he ended
up putting me in a dark blue polo shirt my
parents have been one of the other.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Victim's shirts that he had.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
I don't know as a souvenir, and I have seri curers.
They collect things. It was maribilia or oh that's the
one I enjoyed killing, you know, whatever it was. And
he asked me what am I supposed to do with you?
And I said, listen, and this is what I said.
I will be your girlfriend. I wann't have to tell
anybody how we met. I'll take good care of you.
(37:40):
I will love you the way you deserve to be loved. Right.
He's like, no, we can't do that, No, no, we
can't do that. And I said, listen, if you kill me,
I have a very sick father at home. He's all alone.
I am his only living relative. Same guy that's draping
me at home. Now, I'm saying he's my sick father
(38:02):
and didn't lie about sick because he was very sick.
But he wasn't my father and he was another abuser.
He goes, well, where do you live at? I'm sorry
where I live at? I started to live in the
welles Wood area, Okay, but wells World area is not
too far from my abduction. Right, So by the time
he got me, I was probably already into a mile
(38:24):
down the road. From Christoph Kreme, not even a mile,
maybe three quarters a mile. So he proceeds to get
me in the car fully clothed, stole blindfold, stole ligatures.
He stops at a bank, and of course same seats
recline it back. One important detail I do remember in
the car also was red carpet, that shag carpet. Not
(38:46):
realizing when I first was ordered my clothes off, I
was sir taking my feet and kind of my feet
were tied up. I couldn't move my feet. I would
I would inadvertently rub my clothes into those carpet fibers,
not realizing they're being transferred to my clothes. That's what
broke the case of them. By the way, we'll get
to that.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
In a minute.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
So he ends up going to a bank. I'm remaining
back and I can see how the light backs up.
His back is face in me. He's not overweight. You
could tell he's on the gym, but he's not small.
He's medium kind of build, not pudge or anything, but
he probably could lose a few pounds. Light blue jeans,
white T shirt, white sneakers, short haircut. I remember his
(39:29):
face because in his apartment at one time. I guess
where I gain his trust like a girlfriend boyfriend. He
made me touch his face. I saw it in my hands.
I could see it pop, I could feel part marks.
I almost like you to ask it when you're a child,
the drug ACCID. It just puts those crater potholes in
your face. Clean mustache, clean hairline, like I just got
(39:49):
a haircut, you know, thick eyebrows, not thick, but maintained
over face. I saw his face through my hands. It
was incredible. So all that again, I'm remembering. So he
gets in the car because he said he has something
the bank because he needed money for gas. Now I'm
trying to find an aora at. He goes to a
(40:10):
gas as he tells me, if you get out this car,
I'm gonna go kill the clerk and I'll come back after.
I'm going to kill you. I've gained the guy's trust.
Why would I do that. I'm not gonna have someone's
blood on my hands because I made a choice to run.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Was I scared? Yeah, but I had to stay calm and.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
So at no point did you think this is my
opportunity to jump out of this car and run.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Nope? The movie shows I tried to jump out again theatrics.
We get it.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
So he gets in the car and he's he's asked
me where we go? I said, get off at Interstate
two centy five in Hillsborough. I live in the area.
I don't want him take it into my house because
I don't. I'm seeing where I live, right. So he
gets off the interstate. He passes Hillsborn Rome. Now, I
was abducted at sly in Rome. Hillsburn Rome is the
(40:57):
next major cross street down from Sly, probably a good
mile and a half down the road. He passes it.
He is screwed. You mean for fanities at me. I
don't want to repeat them. Who's calling me everything you
think of? You lied to me, this stuff, the area
you live in. It's like, where are you at? I'm
at Mendon Hall, Great men in Hall, busts a yuie.
(41:18):
I went to Mendehall Elementary School, so in my head
I knew where I was at. He was just one
block over from the light. We were heading westbound. He
makes you turn headed back eastbound and at Hillsboro Rome
on the southeast corner was another church. So if God
didn't have a hand in me getting you know, free
(41:39):
it was a blessing. He goes into you know what's
going down two lanes and then you run, uh cut
over into a turn lane to like cross over westbound lanes.
So he got got like, I don't I don't recall
those little cutouts for a turn lane. But then he
ends up going He makes a huge turn, goes back
westbound and pulls into a parking lot on the north
side of the road, Hillsborn Rome, And when he pulled in,
(42:01):
he's from his cars facing north. He stops the car,
hugs me, has a baseball cap on. Now. He says,
tell your father, and this is so so weird, right,
tell your arm it was weird, poet adjusted, I don't
know what it was. Tell your father's because of him.
I'm letting your live, not realizing he wasn't my father.
(42:24):
He he was just like him a monster. I'm like, okay,
no problem. He gets out of the car and I
was just gonna let me stand there, take me out
and drive off. He proceeds to take my hand and
walk me to a curb. And the curb is like
a half moon, you know, and there was a tree there,
(42:45):
so the curb is encasing the tree in the middle.
I don't see the tree yet, but when I walk
was walking, I actually almost fell for because my shoes
hit the curb. Because it's dark, I couldn't really see
he because you got five minutes stay here until I
drive off.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Okay, so he drives off.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
I put my blindfold down and the first thing I
saw was this beautiful, huge oak tree, which is still
there by the way fifteen fifteen West Hillsborough Avenue. You
used to be an eye opt to go outlet place.
Now it's a oil testing facility for jet.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
Fuel for airplanes. And I've met the people there.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
They won't They were almost going to tear the tree down,
but they kept it up. So anyhow, Yeah, so when
I get a memorial there, I talked about that in
a minute.
Speaker 4 (43:27):
So when I looked at this tree.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
It was like.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
Branches of life, new life, living water, God.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
And I'm thinking this, I'm like, wait a minute, my life's.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
About changed for the better. I think tag number.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
I got to get his tag number, but by the
time I turned around to run out to the street,
he was gone. And that's when I saw the other church.
And I sat in the curb thinking there was like
a like railroad ties that made an up like wall
for the for the business. I sat there for a minute, thinking, run,
he's coming back for you. Run he's gone, thinking a mistake. Run.
(44:03):
I never run so fast. I think I was faster
than the trucks are Olympic track star. I ran so
fast because I knew, for some reason, my grandmother would
be at myr that guy's house, because remember she'd moved out.
So I ran, and every time my car by me
the drainage ditch that goes into the drains for rains
of the gutters, I just throw myself in them in
a car and box, thinking it was him. And at
(44:25):
one point I felt like he was driving by to
see if you can find me again, and then I
hit by the car. I did everything I could have
hit by a hide a car. I finally get home.
I mean it was it was quite a distance to run.
I could have been a home in five minutes in
a car, but it was quite a distance to get home.
I kept banging on the door and banging on the door,
(44:45):
as finally my grandmother opened the door, and then her
boyfriend came and grabbed my hair, and I must have
ensued a five hour beating interrogation. Where have you been?
Speaker 4 (44:56):
Who were you screwing them around.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
With out there? Who you cheating on me with?
Speaker 4 (45:00):
It was awful.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
I kept saying, I've been abducted, I'd been raped again again,
I'd been raped. You know what you do to me?
And he didn't like that too much. My grandmother finally said,
enough's enough. Let's call the police and learn nos his home. Well, originally,
when I can't missing, I found out that they weren't
even looking for me when I didn't come home from
(45:24):
more about eight or nine or ten hours later, they
decided to call the police, saying that I was a
hippotter runaway and I hadn't come home. Then why would
we report me run away? I never ran away, especially
with the serial killer out there, Why would I do that?
You know? So my grandmother proceeds to call the police.
The local police was called the Tampa Police Department, and
she was saying, she's home, like I told your officers,
(45:46):
she runs away, gone for a couple of days, she
comes back, but now she's making some story up that
she got kidnapped. I don't know who this police officer was,
but I mought my life because had he not listened
to what she said, I probably probably I'm pretty much
one hundred percent sure I would have went through my suicide.
(46:06):
He says. She's saying she's a victim of a kidnapped. Kidnapping.
She goes, yes, sir, it's all I. Well, man, we're
got to investigate that. And that's when they came and
got me. Unfortunately, I had to go to the hospital
back then, not like today.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
I didn't have a victim advocate.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
I had to go to the hospital, have strangers look
at me naked again.
Speaker 4 (46:24):
I had to get my.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Mouth swab, I had to get puba cares pulled, hairs
from my head pulled. I had to go through a
rape kit and entails of them taking a camera as
close as they can to the vaginal region, taking swabs
down there first, seventeen year old. Now I'm being I
feel like I was being traumatized all over again, right,
(46:46):
But we had to do it.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
And did you have anyone there with you to support
you that? So you were just there with like doctors,
nurses and police officers and the p Yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
Yes, they would stand by door and guard the door,
you know, because now you know I'm victim of a crime,
so they collected my clothes.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
Of course, I had to wear paper clothes.
Speaker 3 (47:05):
Until they if I'm closed to put on and then
I was taken down to the police station to give
them a statement. State would never changed doing what happened,
So I'm about the clues left behind. They decided to
send in a female cop.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
So you thought maybe you'd be listened to by another woman.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
No, I didn't want a female cop. The reason why
is because the two people I try to tell my
mom what was going on at my grandma's house and
she won't listen to me. The two women in my
life that were supposed to protect, nurture and love me
failed me. Yeah, I didn't want another female to talk to.
I felt like she wouldn't believe me. My suspicion was correct.
(47:44):
She didn't believe me.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Why didn't they believe you? Was it because you were
so I was so calm?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yeah, and that you'd collected so much information in that
time of trauma.
Speaker 3 (47:54):
Yes, they couldn't understand how I remember everything because they
not put in two or two together that I was
also a victim of another crime. My grandma's boyfriend who
has been raking me for four years because if I
had say a thing, I was in fear of retaliation.
He would hurt my family, my mom my siblings, my
grand even my grandmother. Even though she allowed this man
(48:15):
to do this to me, she'd watched sometimes, I still
don't want to hurt it her because she still was
my maternal grandmother. So I sat down with this lady,
and she also talked about what was her cat, trying
to build a rapport with me. I said, the more
you talk about your cat, the time is of essence
to catch this guy so he doesn't do to somebody else.
(48:36):
How A would we go look for him. It's finally
she got I think she got fed up with me.
I wasn't your normal seventeen year old girl. I wasn't
the book smart girl. I mean I was book smart,
but I was more street. I was very intelligent. I
like to think I'm still intelligent. You know. She finally
says she's gonna go get me something to drink water Coke.
I said, no coke, I don't want any That triggered me.
(48:57):
I don't want any any pop. The door was cracked
and I hurt her. Somebody having a conversation with the
I guess was an officer staying by a door another officer.
He goes, so, how is it going on? And they're like, well,
you know, there's to me a holes in her story.
She comes back in. I was like, I want to
go home.
Speaker 4 (49:12):
No, we're going to finish the interview. Oh, we're done
with the interview.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
I want someone who's going to listen to me and
believe my story and not sat outside the room and
thinking that there's holes in my story. I want to
go home.
Speaker 4 (49:23):
I'm at home, not naming for a day.
Speaker 3 (49:26):
The next day they came and got me, or they
sent someone to the house to interview in your house
they felt maybe I felt uncomfortable out the station. Well,
my grandmother and grandma's boyfriend. Why they listened in the
other room for at me. If I say a thing
about home life, he'd come out and hurt the officer
or the detective and hurt me. Because they had a
two way speakerphone on the phone, so that would work out.
(49:49):
The third time I go down, finally send someone them
some common sense. It was a sergeant Larry Pingerton. He
was in charge of the sexual children, violent crime section.
Whatever it was, so at this time I'm fed up
with the female. Sure, I'm sitting on some couch or
something in the office. I was crying and he walks
(50:11):
in and I'm curling a little ball and I'm just
like one. No one's believing me, no one, what are
we doing. We've got to catch this guy. He walked in.
He goes, and I remember him saying, and I haven't
head down like this. I remember him saying, she's just
a child. I looked up and I'm like okay, and
he just looked at me. He goes, we haven't even
talked yet. And I was crying, and just the desperation
(50:35):
on my face, or like, we've got to catch this guy.
I was all about catching the guy, not just telling
my story. I want to be part of this guy's capture.
I'm seventeen, twenty four hours before I wanted to kill myself.
Looked at me, he goes, I believe you. I am
Sergeant Larry Pinkerton. Would you want to talk to me.
I'm like, if you listen, I'll talk. We sat there
(50:58):
and we talked for a while. I sold everything to
the tea. My story never changed, no holes in my story.
He has this great idea of getting me hypnotized. I
don't know what hypnotism means when I'm seventeen years old.
They want to see because I talk about touching his
face and I say, well, I know what it looks like.
Do you think you can do a sketch artist whatever?
(51:20):
I said, possibly. Then he said hypnotize and love. What
is that? I guess you have some counselor psychologist come
in that can hypnotize you to see if subconsciously I
actually actually literally physically saw his face in my eyes.
I did a visual and not realized and I saw
his face. You know what I'm saying. So he had
called home and asked them that they have their permission
(51:42):
because I'm seventeen. Of course no, he said, no, she
needs to come home, do her chores. Go home. The
next day I called Tampa Police Department, get a hold
of Larry Pickton. I had some information of who my
doctor is. When you first walk into my grandmar's boyfriend's house,
living room garage to the right, there was in the
(52:02):
corner was the kitchen, but it was closed off, and then
a dining area. The nineteen seventies flor Micah tabletop metal
rim and those really hard plastic chairs. Yeah. See how
detail am I remember that? And the chair pattern was
red sparkly. Well. They had like a nineteen inch TV
black and white color TV sometimes colors on those was
(52:25):
black and white.
Speaker 4 (52:27):
I was walking by to go.
Speaker 3 (52:28):
To the kitchen for something, speaking to myself, I got it,
I got it, I got we got to catch this guy.
And a news break came on. They have recovered a
dead body. Another dead body. I stopped in my tracks,
the hairs on the back of my neck. Up until
that day, I never even thought my doctor could be
(52:49):
the serial killer. And I'm like, oh my god, my
doctor's serial killer. I just knew it. Intuition, got instinct,
I don't know. So they sent a car for me.
I went down there. Larry comes in there, he sits down.
(53:09):
I tell him what's going on. The movie shows It
makes it sound like he figured out that I was
in connected with the serial killer.
Speaker 4 (53:15):
I'm the one that said, I'm telling you this is
the guy.
Speaker 3 (53:19):
So we're sitting herds talking and again he offered to
get me hypnotized. Again, calls dad or whatever, calls my
grandma's boyfriend, says, no center home. He comes in. I
love Larry because I've used this tactic before in some
cases I work at the sheriff's office, takes his wallet out,
(53:39):
pictures of his family fall, his wife and his daughter.
You know, me being a father and being a husband,
I would do everything I can to be on my
daughter's side to help catch whoever it.
Speaker 4 (53:52):
Is to my daughter.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
And I started crying, do you want to tell me
what's going on at home?
Speaker 4 (53:57):
Now? I guess he must have done research.
Speaker 3 (53:59):
Knowing detectors come to the school CHILDY was investigators and
that was it. I unloaded. I've always wanted a father,
this is what's going on, and he personally went arrested him.
I don't know how my grandmother did get arrested. I
don't know how the TV producers of Lifetime knew the
grandmother they used as the actress in my movie. When
I was on set of the movie, Lifetime believed me
(54:23):
the first time I saw her on screen because I
had headphones on looking to screen in the back when
she's acting.
Speaker 4 (54:28):
She could have been my grandmother's.
Speaker 3 (54:29):
Double, just like her. It was amazing they never arrested her.
I don't know why she had a hand in it.
She's the one who sat me down one day after
I lived there for six months, said, this man's going
to teach you how to please a man.
Speaker 4 (54:40):
She said that to me. I didn't know what she
was talking about.
Speaker 3 (54:44):
Later did I know? She ended up raping my own
mom and apparently my uncle too when they were little.
So the change never got broken with my mom, and
God blessed my mom. She just didn't know how. But
I was to the point I had to do it
and to catch this guy. So I was removed from
the house. I was put at another Detextis house for
(55:04):
two weeks. I couldn't watch TV, read the news, even
to a radio because they were trying to track them down.
But I will be going down to the police station
every day trying to help them put pieces together. Like example,
would you ride around the car with your eyes closed
when we get to where we were at the park
lot of the church and every thing, would you be
willing to do That's like, absolutely, let's do it.
Speaker 4 (55:25):
He goes, you're gonna be okay with that.
Speaker 3 (55:27):
It's like, let's do it. I'd ride in a car
with them cent a direction and we got in an
area of where he may have taken me to, and
then they start doing surveillance on him. The two things
for got to tell you this what was really important.
I'll way back from my abduction, before he dropped me off,
I could see eveneath my blindfold bedf foreg got on
the interstate and I saw two marquees, the Quality Inn
(55:49):
and the Howard Johnson, and they were on the opposite
side of the Interstate, one on the west side, one
on the east side. I can't remember which hotel it
was in the east or west, but that I knew.
I was at two Sentay five and Fouler Avenue. I
knew my town. I used to ride a bicycle. I
knew streets, so I knew landmarks. And when I told
him that, they took detectives all the way down the corridor,
(56:10):
file out in the eastbound from the Interstate, going to
banks to gas stations, and they found a bank statement,
and they ran his car onto the surveillance. They found
his tag number and the tag came up Robert Drolong
and a corincide with the bank statement. Robert Drolong withdrew
this amount of money. So and that's how they was
starting to do surveillance. Everything he would throw out from
(56:32):
the apartment in the dumpster. It's free will and that's
not your summary, he's saying, and they can have it.
They would take it out like they took the waterbed.
A bark put through the waterbed, I mean waterbed, a
lot of evidence. You know, you got semen, you've got hair,
you know, anything on there. Right, So it was just
mind boggling that, not even after two weeks, that he'd
been looking for this guy for eight nine months.
Speaker 4 (56:54):
Two weeks.
Speaker 3 (56:55):
I helped sit there meticulously. Let's try this, let's try this.
Speaker 4 (56:59):
Yes, I'm on for this. Yes, I'll ride around the
car with you my eyes closed. It's not going to
bother me.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
I'm not worried about me being a victim right now,
and worried about others being victim because they may not
make it like I did.
Speaker 4 (57:09):
They may not survive.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
I'm grateful he chose me, believe it or not, Right, Claire,
you'd be like, what because he chose me and not
another seventeen year old could have been a seventeen year
old the couldn't handle it and started fighting initially, and
he would have killed the right.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
There and then yeah, so because did he go on
to quil again after he abducted you.
Speaker 4 (57:27):
Yes, a few so I was in the office.
Speaker 3 (57:30):
I think I was laying on the couch in Larry's
office or something, and I was sleeping, had a dream
or something, and I thought it was just the dream
is so real. When Larry came in to say, hey, hey,
we got him, We got him, I looked at him like,
this is his dream?
Speaker 4 (57:45):
What are you talking about? And I just started crying.
Speaker 3 (57:47):
He goes because you.
Speaker 4 (57:48):
After twelve days we called him, they called him.
Speaker 3 (57:51):
Come out of a movie theater watching sometime a Bruce
Lee movie or something. And at this time the Heilsborough
County Shares Office gun involved too, so they were working
side by side along with the FBI trying to find
this guy. And I remember Stephen Crib. I think he
ended up being a sergeant before he retired years. A
(58:11):
couple of years back, his team brought him down. They
called the Green Team. He put his badge on his
face from him on the ground, says she got you.
Had it not been for me, God knows how any
more he would have killed. I think he might have
killed two, maybe three after me. But I was so
grateful that I was able to help them catch this guy.
(58:33):
Not realizing it was a serial killer until I put
two and two together, because they came. When I went
back and forth from the detective's house, I ended up
going to the I guess the FBI. They put me
in a runaway center called Haven Poe under my name Lisa,
but my last name was not to be known for protection.
(58:53):
And I remember on Tom Pinkerton brought me a photo
six pack of six different guys to see if I
can recognize who my doctor was, just before I realized
it was a serial killer. For his arrest. He goes,
I need you to take time, pick out the picture
you think who might have adopted you, and just take
(59:13):
your time. I had to sign a waiver and all that,
and I'm like, that's your guy. Didn't hesitate in the
movie shows the top left it.
Speaker 4 (59:20):
It was a bottom right.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
So even though you never like took that blind pholt off,
the whole time, you only touched his face, and you
picked up bits and pieces, you could identify him from
a photo.
Speaker 3 (59:29):
Yes, he goes, how sure are you not one hundred
ten percent?
Speaker 4 (59:33):
That is your guy?
Speaker 3 (59:34):
I am telling you now, now I knew who's the
serial killer. They brought me their photo afterwards that your guy.
And what happened is before they arrested him, they stopped
him saying the robbery in the era, hey to mind,
take your picture, and he left him take the picture
that them is poloids, right, Yeah, ended up being that guy,
Robert Joel Long.
Speaker 1 (59:53):
Was there ever a moment after he was arrested? I
mean there was a lot of evidence against him by.
Speaker 2 (59:57):
This stage, but was there ever a moment where you thought, like,
what happens if he gets off and he knows full
well that you're the one who brought him down.
Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
There was a time years later met fifteen years goes
by that he was almost getting out on a technicolity
and I had called Larry Pinkerton like is he getting
out because the first person he's coming for is me?
And somehow the technicality it wasn't valid or something. I
don't know whatever happened to it, but he didn't get out,
but he would have came after me. I decided take
(01:00:24):
my life back and control and I wanted to give
back to my community. I actually wanted to go in
the Air Force. I was hit by a car. Thus,
in my dream of going to the Air Force, end
up not going to the Air Force. I suffered a
I had a severe leg injury, had to have surgery,
so therefore I couldn't go into the military. Ended up
(01:00:45):
getting married, had a daughter, trying to live my life,
and that was not a good relationship, was very unhealthy,
very toxic, and I had to get out. And I
got out and I decided, you know what, I'm going
to get back to my community. If I can't get
back to United States, I'm going to go to any
local colleges and I'm going to sign up for the
(01:01:05):
police academy. And I got into the police Academy. I
did not get sponsored. I paid my own way, and
back then I was a single parent. But I pulled
it off about my very first owned firearm. I turned
my adversities and tragedies into something positive to where I
couldn't be scared for the rest of my life and
looking over my shoulder, who's going to take me next?
(01:01:27):
So I fought my way through the academy. I was
having problems with firearms and I couldn't understand why. I
had a sweet friend. Oh my gosh, he was an incredible,
incredible guy. Dana Lundine lud E n great guy, great,
great sheriff deputy taught me a lot.
Speaker 4 (01:01:44):
He goes, meet me down at the fire range this Saturday.
Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
I don't know it was years ago. I'm like, okay,
we get up to the fire range. He goes, I
don't want you touching a firearm anything you've learned till
now in the academy. Because I hadn't gotten full time
with the Shar's office yet, I had become a reserve.
I worked it out dispatch UNI for five years. By
I was also a reserve. A reserve unit is where
you're another deputy have arrest powers, but you learn sub
(01:02:09):
you go to that stept first or orginistraatement to law enforcement.
I want to make sure that was for me, you
know what I'm saying. So I did it for four years.
But he got me down the range one day. He goes,
what's truly going on? And he goes, let's face your fear. Yeah,
so what are you talking about? He goes, why do
you think you can't shoot? Can't or you don't want to?
(01:02:32):
And I looked at him. I'm like, hees, let me
tell you something. The look on your face told me everything.
It's not the gun that kills people. You have to
stop being afraid and I let's shoot. And let me
tell you something. It went for that man, that deputy,
my my zone partner, helped me through, to get through
(01:02:52):
the fear of holding a gun. I don't think I
have been a sheriff deputy.
Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
And you think that's because guns had been held against
you so many times in the Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Yes, it was used as a fear tactic. You know,
is used as control because being rare. It is not
about sets right, It's about that person being control of you,
that person heard you, to get them gratified, to get
them off in a sense, you know. So I remember
in the reserve because I had to go through reserve academy.
Oh my lord, we got the guy deputy named John Footman,
(01:03:23):
big black dude, muscle, had his old taime kwondo studio.
My daughter went to his studio when he see was little.
And it's funny how life's fur a circle. Now we're
going to work together as deputies. In the reserve program,
you still got to go through academy. I remember fighting
him and I remember something pulling me off of him. Lisa,
it's okay, let go, let go. I had blocked out.
(01:03:45):
I was beating the snot out of him. If you
want to say, and I didn't mean to. In my mind,
you're not going to hit me. I am not allowing
anybody to hit me anymore. I am done. I went
through with my ex husband. I went through you know,
Robert you loong, I went through my my grandmo's boyfriend,
and as a child growing up, I am not allowing
(01:04:06):
I didn't want to hurt me ever again in my mind. Psychologically,
I went to protect a survivor Molde and they're like,
is she got to be a deputy or not? You know,
because they're like, sure, this is what you want to do,
you know. And there's times I see John who goes, WHOA, Well,
your kiddies, we're still good friends, right, I'm like, yes, John,
this guy's twice my size right, muscles here and there.
(01:04:29):
But it helped me grow into the person that I
was meant to be. Resilience is the one word I
use to take it further in life. After being five
years and dispatch where you tell a deputes where to go,
what to do, what calls to go to, and taking
nine one calls and you're saving people's lives on the phone.
You know, I decided to go through the full time academy,
(01:04:51):
put myself through that academy, paid my way through the academy.
For nine months, why I was working dispatch, and in
two thousand and five I hit the street as a
full time sheriff deputy for the Hillsborgan to share his office.
They spent twenty five years now, so I've had it
very career. Anybody that can say, you.
Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
Know, what do I do with my life? Look at
my story.
Speaker 3 (01:05:13):
You know. I took my life and I gave back
to the people who helped save my life, you know,
And I don't know. It's something about the sheriff's office
over the city police office. I just felt more comfortable
with the Hillsboro kind of shriff's office. And I made
a life for myself, and I'm very proud of that.
I'm very humbled because no God can take it away.
(01:05:35):
The minute you're not humble, the minute you you both
and you know and become vain, God can take it away.
Life has been ups and downs. I used to have
nightmares long long ago, but I never never had really.
Speaker 4 (01:05:56):
Any nightmares of my abduction.
Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
Maybe one that dream was, you know, back in the
seventies had those big curtains, and I was walking in
this hallway. The dark house might have been my grandma's
boyfriend's dark house, and I remember seeing red light behind
these these beaded curtains, and I walk in. I see
Barbie Jeelong raping another girl, I think, and then I
(01:06:19):
have one that he was coming after me with his gun.
He's climbing through my bedroom window at the detective's house.
I remember having a dream like that. I went to
counseling here and there, but I just wanted to live
my life. I got tired of telling my story over
and over again. I wanted to go live my life.
But I think the most nightmares I've ever had was
of my childhood. I think because the Robert Joe long
(01:06:40):
was only twenty six hours, it was a long twenty hours.
My rape at my grandma's house was four years, four years,
so I've had more nightmares of that than anything. But
my nightmares have stopped. I don't really have any if.
I dream, but not very often. I got a phone
(01:07:03):
call at work one day back in twenty nineteen. It
was April eighteenth. I'm good with dates, by the way,
and I do so I for the past twelve years
have been in school resources. Were in state of Florida,
every school has to be equipped with a school resource deputy. Okay,
we're still deputies. Is our assignments in the school summertimes
(01:07:25):
we work on the street whatever special details and needed.
Just for like last summer, I worked in the detective section.
I was detective in Trenting for thirty days. Wasn't for me.
I loved it, but I liked I love working with
the kids. So I ended up back in school resource.
All day this area code eight five zero kept calling me.
I don't know what eight five zeros spam right, I'd answer,
(01:07:48):
hang up.
Speaker 4 (01:07:48):
I got so tired of it.
Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
I was.
Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
I remember chooing a kid out in the office when
the sister of Principal's office and I answered the phone.
I was speaker phone, and I was like, what do
you want? You've been calling me all day, sweet little
voice named Michelle Johnson, stay turns off or up in telhouse.
I'm Michelle Johnston calling from Governor Ron Dessantans's office.
Speaker 4 (01:08:11):
Can I have a moment to speak with you? Please?
Speaker 3 (01:08:13):
I sounds important. Let me go to my office because
we have an Ald offices in the schools. I've set
the door, and wow, it was it was a long
time coming because Robert Glong is still sitting on death
rose in eighty four. Now it's twenty nineteen. So I said, ma'am,
what can I do for you? She goes, well, as
(01:08:34):
we speak, the ink's not even dry. Govern Ron DeSantis
to sign Robert Delong's death warrant. Me, being a police officer,
sheriff deputy, I knew what that meant, but I said,
what does that mean? I'm waiting. I'm Gonnaela has to
trying to advocate, you know, a year before, a couple
years before, trying to get him to be executed. Nothing's
(01:08:54):
come of it, you know, victim's advocate. And she goes,
he's being set to put to death. May twenty third,
twenty nineteen. I'm like, oh, My first reaction was I
started crying because the human civilian parted me. That compassion
overflow to me, thinking how much power one person has
(01:09:18):
in the decision making of putting someone to death. Right,
he's going to die? And then and the law enforsement
kicked in and she goes, are you okay. I'm like,
I'm Okay, I just have a few questions, and she
answered him. She goes, well, we're extending this phone call.
We would like to have you up here. We're inviting
you to come up here if you want to sit
(01:09:38):
in the execution.
Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
Well, can you talk to me about that, because that's like,
I don't know whether you even thought twice about whether
you would.
Speaker 3 (01:09:45):
Attend or not, but you also didn't think twice about it.
Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
White an iconic T shirt to that event too. Can
you please talk me through that?
Speaker 4 (01:09:51):
So poetic justice.
Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
I've always said that justice was served the day upon
his arrests, the day he took his last breath moved me.
Sitting in the front row holding Sergeant Larry Finkertron's hand
and sergeant from Tampa Police Department and Sergeant Stephen Cribs
hand were maybe I don't know, eight ten feet from him.
(01:10:15):
I just laid there and took his last breath. Again,
justice was served the day who was arrested, and justice
was completed the day took his last breath. So it
was poetic justice for me.
Speaker 4 (01:10:25):
I've already been doing a lot of healing.
Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
Understand that my journey in my life from my childhood
abuse Falter Care, up to my abuse with my grandma's boyfriend,
and now my adoption. I'll always be on a lifetime
journey of healing. I want to spread the word. I
want to spread my testimony that just because bad things
happen to good people doesn't mean you can't go on
(01:10:50):
your life.
Speaker 4 (01:10:51):
Get off your butt and do something for your life.
Speaker 3 (01:10:55):
The last thing that is in my movie to Larry
Pinkerton was you haven't seen the last of me yet,
And yes, I went. I wrote a victim's impact statement,
and I got to read my book impact statement, and
one of the things was I'd said thank you for
choosing me and not some of the little seventeen year
old girl, because I got my strength back, I got
(01:11:18):
my courage back, I got my life back. Having that happened,
I truly believe I wouldn't see her talking to you.
I would have had my mother and my family members
visiting my grave. But no more, hear me, war, You're
not going to silence me. It's not for exportation, it's
not for money. Go on, but going along with that courage.
(01:11:43):
I am a lioness and that's how I see myself,
and I'm grateful. I am humble again. I cannot thank
God every single day from my life when I wake up,
thank you for another day of life. Thank you for
my job, thank You for the accountans lives that I continue.
I want to continue to change and to help. And
(01:12:04):
that's where I stand today.
Speaker 1 (01:12:05):
And yeah, Lisa, thank you so so much.
Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
Hopefully people who feel like they don't have anything to
live for right here is and know that there is
light on the other side, no matter how dark it
might be in that moment.
Speaker 3 (01:12:22):
You know, if anyone you know, I'm sure people are
going to be listening to us and to that girl,
to the woman right now that you can't find that
little girl inside of you where you were if you
were abused, reach inside yourself, hug.
Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
Her and tell her it's okay. It's okay to mess up,
but it's also okay to live and go on. It's okay.
Speaker 3 (01:12:48):
It's breathtaking from me to know that I can share
my story today and sit here and not cry anymore,
you know, to know that everything I went through my
life in the age two until the age of seventeen,
I know now that I can look inside my I
hug that little girl and say it wasn't your fault.
(01:13:12):
It wasn't your fault, and that means more to me.
Speaker 4 (01:13:17):
You have no idea when I'm at the schools.
Speaker 3 (01:13:20):
You know, I live alone. I have a puppy dog,
as you know.
Speaker 4 (01:13:24):
When a child comes to me and said, you know,
definitely I need a hug today.
Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
I look at I was like, oh, sweetheart, what kind
of day you have and let's talk. But when they're
hugged me and I don't realize how much that I
just need to have just as much, if not more. Sometimes.
Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
Lisa got divorced a couple of years ago, but after
we finished talking about her ordeal, she explained to us
that she was actually pretty happy on her own, loving
life with a gorgeous rot while a rescue dog by
her side. She explained that she has certainly had to
work through her issues when it comes to trust, but
despite everything she's been through, the nightmares have stopped.
Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
She has plans for the next stage of her life.
Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
Well.
Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
She spends quality time with her little granddaughter. This woman
who's been deeply hurt and who has suffered through immense trauma,
says no man and no thing can hold her back
allowing love into her life, whether that be from a
rescue pup, the children she works with, or the men
in her life What a boss. Thank you to Lisa
for helping us tell her story. True Crime Conversations is
(01:14:28):
Amma Mia podcast hosted by me Claire Murphy and produced
by Tarlie Blackman, with audio designed by Jacob Brown. If
you liked this episode and want to hear more from
guests like Lisa, send us an email. It's true Crime
at mammamea dot com dot a you Also, if you
got a sec please leave us a rating and review
on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast.
Just let us know what you think of the show.
(01:14:50):
Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week
with another true Crime Conversation