"My Punishment's Over": Oscar Ray Bolin's Interview the Day Before His Execution, 2016

Name: "My Punishment's Over": Oscar Ray Bolin's Interview the Day Before His Execution, 2016
Uploaded: 2016-01-06
Duration: 8 min 23 s
Description: On the eve of his execution, Oscar Ray Bolin told FOX 13 he had never met the three women he was convicted of killing, called his death a "release", and urged their families to examine the evidence.

On the eve of his execution, Oscar Ray Bolin told FOX 13 he had never met the three women he was convicted of killing, called his death a "release", and urged their families to examine the evidence.

Subject: Oscar Bolin
Recorded: about January 6, 2016
Runtime: 8:23

Content warning: Concerns the murders of three young women in 1986, one of them 17.

The Interview

On January 6, 2016, the day before he was due to be executed, Oscar Ray Bolin Jr. spoke to a FOX 13 Tampa Bay reporter on Florida's death row. He said he felt "a little numb" but was at peace, that he had been locked up for 28 years, and that his execution would be "my release". Asked about Natalie Holley, Stephanie Collins and Teri Lynn Matthews, he said: "I didn't know them. I'd never seen them. Never met them." He said ten juries had heard the same evidence and that another man had confessed to the Matthews murder.

Historical Context

In 1986 three young women were murdered in the Tampa Bay area: Natalie Blanche Holley, 25, in Tampa in January; Stephanie Collins, 17, in November; and Teri Lynn Matthews, 26, abducted from a Pasco County post office on December 5. The killings were linked to Bolin around 1990, while he was serving a long sentence in Ohio for a 1987 kidnapping and rape, after an anonymous tip that came from the new husband of his former wife. His convictions were repeatedly overturned and retried; the Tampa Bay Times counted ten trials. In 1996 he married Rosalie Martinez, a paralegal in the Hillsborough County public defender's office, in a ceremony shown on television.

Circumstances of the Interview

FOX 13 published the interview the same day. Bolin was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison on January 7, 2016, for the murder of Teri Lynn Matthews, after a delay of about four hours while the U.S. Supreme Court considered a final appeal. He was pronounced dead at 10:16 p.m. Asked for a final statement, he said, "No, sir." His was the first execution in the United States in 2016. The reporter says in the clip that the full conversation had already run for 20 minutes; this is an edit.

What the Interview Covers

Bolin describes 28 years in confinement and the support of people outside, says the state thinks it is giving justice but is "just going to kill somebody else", and denies all three murders, saying he knows the women only from crime scene photographs, newspaper articles and police reports. He disputes the hair and fiber evidence. He says he will not make a final statement, that the victims' families will gain nothing from his death, and that they owe it to their children to have the evidence examined independently. He describes reading philosophy and history, watching PBS, and drawing, which he says he did for "the kids" and nobody else, and reflects that his Ohio imprisonment may have harmed his credibility.

What Makes the Recording Significant

The interview records Bolin's account of the case, given the day before his execution. It shows him maintaining his innocence to the end, as he did through decades of appeals, and declining in advance to make a final statement in the death chamber, which he did not.

Archival Importance

The Florida cases against Bolin ran from 1990 to 2016, through repeated reversals and retrials. Wikipedia cites this FOX 13 interview as his interview on the day before his execution. It is probably his final television interview, but that is inferred from its timing.

Important Caveats

Bolin's denials, his claim that another man confessed, and his criticism of the evidence are his own statements; juries convicted him repeatedly and courts upheld the convictions on which he was executed. The date he gives for his imprisonment (December 9, 1987) is his own. He was also linked to the 1987 murder of Deborah Diane Stowe in Texas but was not charged. The reporter is not identified. The woman he was convicted of kidnapping and raping in Ohio is not named.

Fox 13 Reporter: So I, I got to ask you, how are you feeling this morning?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Mm-hmm. A little numb. I mean, I don't know how you would expect someone to feel. I mean, if they told you tomorrow you're dying, how would you feel? It's not something... We all die, but knowing your exact date and time, that's, that's hard to deal with. But I'm at peace with myself. I mean, as far as, it's my release. My punishment's over. I've been here 28 years now. I'm tired.

Fox 13 Reporter: So you've been here 28 years.

Oscar Ray Bolin: I've been locked up 28 years, since December 9th, 1987. So I'm a little tired.

Fox 13 Reporter: And, and in confinement. Explain what that's like.

Oscar Ray Bolin: Imagine spending 28 years in this room. There's no way to describe it. It's exceptionally, exceptionally difficult. I've had a lot of support. A lot of people love me and care about me. A lot of support outside. That's made it a little easier. But still, it's very difficult to spend 28 years in a room like this.

Fox 13 Reporter: A lot of thinking?

Oscar Ray Bolin: You have to be able to look in the mirror and like yourself.

Fox 13 Reporter: Do you like yourself?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Yeah. I'm comfortable with myself. There's a lot of things in my younger, in my past, you know, I wish I could change, but 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 going to kill somebody else. I was like, and they killed me 28 years ago when they locked me up. Now they're just releasing me.

Fox 13 Reporter: So you're saying you didn't murder these women?

Oscar Ray Bolin: No.

Fox 13 Reporter: You didn't murder Natalie Holley?

Oscar Ray Bolin: No.

Fox 13 Reporter: Stephanie Collins?

Oscar Ray Bolin: No.

Fox 13 Reporter: Teri Lynn Matthews?

Oscar Ray Bolin: No. I didn't know them. I'd never seen them. Never met them. And [unclear: "had I" / "I"], I met them through photographs, through crime scene photos, through newspaper articles. I've gotten to know them fairly well through newspaper articles and crime scene photos, police reports.

Fox 13 Reporter: So 10 juries convicted you, though?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Yes. Ten juries heard the same evidence repeatedly, over and over and over. Nothing changed.

Fox 13 Reporter: Evidence linking you to the murders?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Yes, people's testimony and the physical evidence. What physical evidence actually linked me?

Fox 13 Reporter: There's hair and fibers, right?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Hair and fibers that [unclear: "Mike Malone prepared" / "might belong prepared"], not from me.

Fox 13 Reporter: So I've been hearing you talk for the last 20 minutes, and you're, you're going over the case, you're going over the evidence and, and talking about it being flawed and tainted and planted. So is Florida basically killing an innocent man?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Yes. For, for the murder of Stephanie Collins and Natalie Holley and Teri Lynn Matthews. They're about to execute me for Teri Lynn Matthews' murder. They execute someone who absolutely did not commit that murder.

Fox 13 Reporter: So you're innocent?

Oscar Ray Bolin: There was another man confessed to it.

Fox 13 Reporter: So you're innocent?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Absolutely innocent of the murder. I had nothing to do with it.

Fox 13 Reporter: Are you going to have anything final to say right before the injection?

Oscar Ray Bolin: No. That's my release. They're not going to get no justice out of that. They won't. If, if anything, they'll leave angry. They'll say, well, that was too easy, there was nothing there. Is it going to change anything for them? When they wake up the day after, is anything going to be different? Now I'm not going to be there. Where's their focus of their anger now? They're still going to be without their child. They're still going to be numb, you know. Maybe it won't happen today. Maybe it'll happen a week or six weeks, or maybe something will happen a year down the road or whatever, then they'll say, wow, maybe something will change. They'll say, well, maybe I want to look at the evidence. It might be too late for me, but they owe it to their child. I would, if it was my child. They owe their child that much.

Fox 13 Reporter: Are you going to be looking at them right before you're executed?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Well, if they're in the window, I probably will.

Fox 13 Reporter: Eye to eye, you're going to look at all of them?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Well, I don't know. Depends if I can see them or not.

Fox 13 Reporter: But you plan to?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Oh, if I can see them, yes.

Fox 13 Reporter: And would you say anything?

Oscar Ray Bolin: I don't know if I'll say anything, because I don't know if it would do any good, you know.

Fox 13 Reporter: What would you say to them?

Oscar Ray Bolin: I encourage you to examine the evidence. Hire an independent, someone that you trust, someone you feel comfortable with, and go through it.

Fox 13 Reporter: Is that what you're going to say?

Oscar Ray Bolin: That's what I would say. That's all I can say. I didn't do it. You're not going to believe me, fine. Then there's no point of me saying that. But don't take my word for it. Don't take the police. Do an independent analysis. Let them do it.

Fox 13 Reporter: Did they tell you what time the execution takes place?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Well, I think it's scheduled for 6 p.m. [pause] But I was like, after 28 years of this, being in this box for 28 years, it's a release. My punishment's over. They can't hurt me no more.

Fox 13 Reporter: Right. So what are you doing in your cell all those years, sitting in there?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Read.

Fox 13 Reporter: Read what?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Books.

Fox 13 Reporter: About what?

Oscar Ray Bolin: I read everything. I read all the, the, you know, the works of our, the philosophers, Nietzsche, I've read them all. History. I mean, you're limited to what you can do. Reading's pretty much the only thing. Writing, reading, writing. I had a TV. I watched TV. Stayed up on the world events and politics and stuff.

Fox 13 Reporter: What do you watch? Anything in politics that's interesting to you?

Oscar Ray Bolin: Mostly I watched the PBS shows, the offbeat news programs, because they're more in depth, more coverage. A lot of the Masterpiece Mysteries and stuff like that. I didn't watch a lot of the mainstream TV. Do artwork, draw.

Fox 13 Reporter: What do you draw?

Oscar Ray Bolin: I did different types of drawings for [unclear: "Rosalie" / "Rosie"], for the kids. I didn't draw for nobody else. [unclear: "I didn't draw for her" / "been for her"]. But hopefully someday the truth will come out. That's, I mean, it might be too late for me. It was too late for me 28 years ago. I came to prison 28 years ago. So, had I not been in prison for the Ohio case, maybe [unclear: "not" / "now just would have happened"], maybe my credibility would have been different. I don't know. In hindsight, you can sit back and say, well, there's a lot of what-ifs or I-should-haves, but you can't change that. We get one go-around.

Fox 13 Reporter: Mm-hmm.

Oscar Ray Bolin: And I have to accept the hand that was dealt me. Some of us don't get the opportunity. Dying down there is not as bad as [unclear: "dying the car wreck" / "car wreck"] or upside down the ditch or, you know, house fire, or like the victims died, or, I mean, there's many worse ways to go. At least I had the opportunity to say goodbye to my people. I had a chance to prepare myself. I have, you know, so... [recording ends] ---