A convicted serial killer and rapist said his ‘punishment is over’ in his chilling final interview before his execution.
Oscar Ray Bolin was executed aged 53 in Florida in January 2016 after spending 28 years locked up.
He had been convicted for the kidnapping and rape of a 20-year-old woman in December 1987. Bolin held a gun to the woman’s head and pulled the trigger, but the weapon did not fire. Bolin, who committed the crime with other men, let the woman go along a Pennsylvania highway.
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But during his imprisonment for this horrific case, an anonymous tip would reveal Bolin was actually serial killer.
Bolin, who was born in Indiana, frequently got in trouble during his youth which continued into adulthood.
On 25 January, 1986, Natalie Blanche Holley, a 25-year-old night manager at a fried chicken shop in Tampa finished work and locked up the store for the night with a colleague. She then headed to her car at around 1:30 am, however, a jogger found her body the next morning. She had been stabbed to death.
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Months later on 5 November, 1986, high school student Stephanie Collins, 17, disappeared after finishing her shift at a drugstore. Her body was found a month later wrapped in towels and sheets. She had also been stabbed to death and her skull was crushed.
When Collins’ body was found on 5 December, 1986, a 26-year-old woman named Teri Lynn Matthews went missing and her car was found outside a post office with the engine still running. Her body was found later the same day wrapped in a white sheet. Her throat had been cut and she had been bludgeoned.
Bolin was finally stopped when he was imprisoned for the 1987 rape and kidnapping but around three years would pass before he would be connected to the murders of Holley, Collins and Matthews.
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Bolin’s wife, Cheryl Haffner, divorced him and remarried in 1989. She told her new husband that Bolin had confessed to committing multiple murders, leading to her new husband calling a tip line and implicating Bolin in 1990.
Other witnesses soon came forward and he was found guilty and sentenced to death in July 1991 for the murder of Holley. He later received a death sentence for the two other women.
Bolin’s execution was finally set for 7 January, 2016. He sat down with Fox 13 Tampa Bay to discuss his feelings about death and asserted his innocence.
When asked how he felt on the morning of 6 January, 2016, Bolin said he felt ‘a little numb’.
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He continued: “I mean, I don’t know how you would expect someone to feel, if they told you ‘Tomorrow you’re dying, how would you feel? We all die but it’s knowing your exact date and time - that’s hard to deal with.”
Bolin said he was ‘at peace’ with himself and called the execution his ‘release’ and claimed ‘my punishment’s over’.
He added: “I’ve been here 28 years. I’m tired.”
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Bolin told the news station that being in confinement was ‘exceptionally difficult’.
“I’m at peace with myself. The state’s about to kill me and they think they’re getting justice, and I’m like, ‘Well they’re not getting justice - they’re just gonna kill somebody else’," he said.
“They killed me 28 years ago when they locked me up. Now they’re just releasing me.”
When asked if he murdered anyone, Bolin replied 'no'.
He didn’t express any sympathy or remorse for the families of the victims. “Is it gonna change anything for them? When they wake up the day after [the execution] is anything gon’ be different? Now I’m not gon’ be there, where’s the focus of their anger now? They’re still gonna be without their child, they’re still gonna be numb.”
His last meal consisted of a rib-eye steak, a baked potato, salad, garlic bread, lemon meringue pie and Coca-Cola. He didn’t make a final statement.
Bolin was executed at 10:16 pm EST on 7 January, 2016 as planned.
Gregory Robinson