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As in a previous case, high court justices throw out video testimony from Oscar Ray Bolin's ex-wife.
By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 31, 2001
TAMPA -- Two times, Natalie Holley has sat in a courtroom, watching as Oscar Ray Bolin, the man accused of killing her daughter in 1986, was convicted and sentenced to death.
Two times, Holley has watched as Bolin, accused of killing Stephanie Collins in 1986, was convicted and sentenced to death.
Two times, Holley has watched as Bolin, accused of killing Teri Lynn Matthews in 1986, was convicted and sentenced to death.
On Thursday, Holley got the telephone call she did not want but had come to expect: The Florida Supreme Court had reversed Bolin's conviction in the killing of Holley's daughter, 25-year-old Natalie Blanche Holley.
He already had won a third trial in the other killings. The cases -- among the most notorious in Tampa Bay history -- are all back at square one.
Natalie Holley now is 76. It has been 15 years since her daughter was killed, 10 years since Bolin was first sentenced to death in the case. She wants to see the death sentence carried out.
"At this rate, I won't live long enough," Holley said. "I mean, this is getting ridiculous."
Despite six convictions, Bolin has escaped each of the six death sentences.
Most of the appeals issues have centered on the testimony of Bolin's ex-wife, Cheryl Jo Coby, who died in 1992 but not before telling prosecutors a horrifying story. She said she had helped Bolin clean up the mess left after one victim was killed, accompanied him in disposing the body of another victim and heard him talk about the third victim. Prosecutors videotaped Coby's testimony and have presented it at each of his trials.
In a two-page decision Thursday, the Supreme Court overturned Bolin's conviction in the Holley case, saying the judge in the 1999 retrial erroneously ruled that Bolin waived his spousal privilege in a letter he left before an unsuccessful attempt to kill himself. That privilege protects defendants' spouses from testifying about their conversations.
Bolin did not confess in the six-page letter left in his cell, but wrote, "If there's anything that you really want to know about, then you'll haft to ask Cheryl Jo, because she knew just about everything that I was ever a part of . . . she knew about all 3 of these homicide which I'm charged with."
Justices questioned whether Bolin actually waived his spousal privilege in the letter, and decided that the judge improperly admitted the testimony of Bolin's ex-wife based on the letter.
"We do not find competent, substantial evidence to support the trial court's decision that Bolin made a voluntary waiver through the letter," the justices wrote. "Therefore, we reverse Bolin's convictions and sentences and remand for a new trial."
The latest opinion comes a month after the same decision was handed down in the case of 17-year-old Stephanie Collins. Collins was a Chamberlain High School student abducted from a Carrollwood shopping plaza in November 1986. Her body was found in a ditch a month later. She had been beaten and stabbed. Coby testified that she helped Bolin dispose of Collins' body.
Thursday's decision lifts the last of the death sentences from Bolin's head, but the former carnival worker will remain in his cell on death row.
In mid September, Bolin will be transferred to Pasco County for his retrial in the Matthews murder. She was a 26-year-old bank clerk who was abducted and killed in December 1986 as she was on her way to the post office in Land O'Lakes. Coby testified that Bolin once pointed out a spot in Pasco County and said it was where the "Matthews girl" was.
Holley's mother said Thursday that based on the Matthews' and Collins' decisions, she was expecting the ruling.
"I've just been sitting here waiting for it," Natalie Holley said. "I just knew it was going to happen."
Her daughter was a 25-year-old restaurant manager. Her body was found in a Tampa orange grove in January 1986; she had been stabbed to death.
Retrial dates for the Collins and Holley cases have not been set. A special prosecutor must be appointed because Mark Ober, who defended Bolin in one of the trials, is now the Hillsborough state attorney.
Lawyers will face another round of battles in the upcoming trials to determine how much, if any, of the ex-wife's testimony will be admitted.
Holley has accompanied the mothers of the other murder victims to all the trials. Having to sit and listen to the details of the gruesome murders again and again has been excruciating, she said.
"I just hurt inside," she said.
NATALIE BLANCHE HOLLEY: The 25-year-old restaurant manager was stabbed to death in January 1986. Her body was found in a Tampa orange grove. Bolin's conviction and death sentence were overturned by Florida's high court in 1994. He was retried, convicted and sentenced to death again in 1999.
STEPHANIE COLLINS: The 17-year-old Chamberlain High student, was plucked from a Carrollwood parking lot and stabbed and beaten to death in 1986. Bolin was convicted in 1991. He was sentenced to die, but both the conviction and the sentence were vacated by the state Supreme Court in 1994. Bolin was retried, convicted and sentenced to death in 1999. In July, Florida's high court overturned the second conviction and sentence.
TERI LYNN MATTHEWS: The 26-year-old bank clerk killed as she went to the post office in Land O'Lakes in December 1986. Bolin was twice convicted and condemned in 1992 and 1996. The convictions and sentences were overturned by Florida's high court in 1995 and 1999.