Married to a Monster: Ex-wife discusses serial killer who raped, killed 10 women
02/23/2016 12:09 pm PST
A rare look inside the mind of one of the country's most notorious serial killers, Bobby Joe Long, from the woman who knew him best: his ex-wife.
Crime Watch Daily Correspondent Melissa Moore, whose own father is a serial killer, has Cindy Brown's story.
A serial killer had the city of Tampa, Florida frozen in fear after brutally raping and murdering 10 women in eight months in 1984.
But there are two women who would miraculously survive his brutal attacks.
One, his long-suffering ex-wife; the other, a brave teenager who outsmarted the beast and led police to his door.
Bobby Joe Long became Cynthia Brown's first love when they were both young teenagers growing up in Miami. They became an average family made complete by a son and daughter who arrived within the first few years of their marriage.
Bobby Joe Long suffered a major head injury in a motorcycle accident. Cindy says that's when Bobby Joe suddenly changed from loving father and husband into the overbearing boss of everyone. That soon escalated to verbal and physical abuse.
Cindy says Bobby Joe kept getting increasingly more violent. Cindy eventually had enough of being Bobby Joe's punching bag.
Rather than shoot him, Cindy chose another way to get Bobby Joe out of her life: she divorced him. But now, in hindsight, she wishes she'd stuck with "Plan A," because Bobby Joe would go on a brutal rampage of rape and murder that would horrify and terrify an entire city, until a gutsy teenager named Lisa Noland with street smarts would help her survive an attack by the diabolical serial killer.