Oscar Ray Bolin to be put to death tonight

STARKE, Fla. (AP) – A former carnival worker who was convicted of killing three Tampa Bay-area women and then married a member of his defense team has been executed in Florida.

His execution was scheduled for 6 p.m. but was delayed while state officials awaited word from the Supreme Court about an appeal filed earlier in the day. Oscar Ray Bolin was executed for his conviction of killing 26-year-old Teri Matthews in 1986.

Collins disappeared from a shopping center parking lot in Tampa the same year, and two months later, Matthews was abducted north of Tampa. When the authorities first confronted Bolin about the killings, he was already serving a 22- to 75-year prison sentence in an OH prison for a 1987 rape of a 20-year-old woman outside of Toledo.

During the execution and in the moments before, Reeves held hands in the witness room with Donna Witmer, the mother of Stephanie Collins who was another one of Bolin’s 1986 murder victims. His visitors included his wife, Rosalie, and Dale Recinella who is Bolin’s spiritual adviser. “Phillip Bolin said he watched his brother try to drown her with a garden hose and beat her with a wood club”.

Scott signed Bolin’s death warrant in October.

All of Bolin’s convictions were reversed at least twice due to legal errors, but new juries found him guilty again in all three cases.

‘I never, never, ever thought for a second that he was guilty of those three murders, ‘ she told ABC’s 20/20 past year. The second, teenager Stephanie Collins, was slain between November and December of 1986, around the time of Matthews’ murder.

Bolin’s trials received widespread publicity in the Tampa Bay area – but not just because of the seemingly endless legal processes or the brutal nature of the killings.

Matthews’ mother, Kathleen Reeves, said: “It’s been so long”.

Before his death she said: “The State is about to execute an innocent man based on perjury, police misconduct, tainted Federal Bureau of Investigation evidence… confessions of other perps… prosecutorial conduct”.

“For him to be strapped on a gurney and be injected with poison and murdered and killed I think that’s disgusting”, Brunvand told reporters outside of the prison about 30 minutes later. Over the decades, the mothers of all three women have endured trials and re-trials. “I’m at peace with myself”.

While on trial, a woman who was on the defense team fell in love with Bolin.

His case drew national attention when he was televised marrying by phone a paralegal who had been working in the public defender’s office. Martinez divorced her husband, and, on a live TV, married Bolin in 1996, ten years after the slayings. It’s my release. My punishment’s over.

The new husband of Bolin’s ex-wife had called an anonymous tip line to report Bolin’s involvement in the crimes.

“I didn’t do it, you’re not going to believe me, fine”, he said, adding that “After 28 years of this, being in this box for 28 years, it’s a release”.