Tag: Death Row

What It’s Like Married To A Convicted Killer On Death Row

Rosalie and Oscar Bolin have been married for 18 years. Oscar is a convicted serial killer currently on death row.
 
Via ABC News–

Rosalie and Oscar Bolin have been married for 18 years. Oscar sends her love letters and hand-drawn cards practically every day, and Rosalie has kept them all.

“I couldn’t bear to throw any of them away. I couldn’t. I think the art of love making is probably in these cards,” Rosalie Bolin told ABC News’ “20/20.”

But the couple has never lived together. In fact, they are only allowed to see each other twice a week.

That’s because Oscar lives on death row at Florida State Prison in Raiford, Florida.

Oscar is a convicted serial killer, who has been awaiting execution 19 years. He was found guilty of the 1986 murders of 25-year-old Natalie Blanche Holley, 26-year-old Teri Lynn Matthews and 17-year-old Stephanie Collins. Each woman was found dumped on the side of a road in the Tampa, Florida area, stabbed multiple times.

But Oscar’s convictions don’t bother Rosalie because she truly believes her husband is innocent.

“I never, never, ever thought for a second that he was guilty of those three murders,” Rosalie told “20/20.”
In fact, for the 20 years, Rosalie has been on a mission trying to prove Oscar didn’t do what a court said he did.

Rosalie, who is a full time licensed private investigator and mitigations specialist on other cases, first met Oscar when she was working as a lawyer’s assistant assigned to his case over 20 years ago.

According to her, “the evidence doesn’t support a conviction.”

Though at the time she was the wife of a prominent Tampa attorney and lived a lavish lifestyle with their four young daughters, she wanted more from her own marriage, and Oscar caught her eye immediately.

“A door opens. There’s this young man standing there. His back is towards me and he turns around. He says, ‘Who are you?’ I said, ‘I’m here to help you,’ and I think I said, ‘I’m your angel,'” Rosalie told “20/20” about their first meeting in an interview that first aired Nov. 1996.

Over a two-year period, Oscar and Rosalie became close. Rosalie said she would bring him depositions and ask him to underline things that were inconsistent. She said the endless hours of study leaded her to the conclusion that he was innocent.
“This was not a situation where she came in nave or ignorant to the system or the circumstances,” Oscar told “20/20” in 1996.

Rosalie’s husband divorced her and he was given primary custody of their four young daughters, then-aged 6 to 14, while she kept parental rights and liberal visitation. She and Oscar then married, not only out of their growing love, but also in a sort of legal maneuver. They hoped the marriage would bring more media attention.

ABC News’ “20/20” was there for the wedding in 1996. Oscar and Rosalie exchanged vows over speaker phone while Rosalie wore her wedding dress and a photo of Oscar stood in for him. 

Instead of a honeymoon, the newlywed couple was in a courtroom when Oscar was given a death sentence for one of the murders.
Almost two decades later and after numerous appeals and convictions totaling 7 murder trials in all, Rosalie still supports her husband, who she drives to see twice a week.

“He doesn’t belong there. He just doesn’t, and when you know someone’s innocent, it’s the worst place to be, you know? And when you can’t do anything to help them,” Rosalie said.

Despite the fact that Oscar spends 23 hours a day by himself in a six-foot by nine-foot cell, Rosalie said he is a wonderful husband, though not a traditional one.

“I can’t ever expect him to change the oil in my car or take the garbage out or … go to the movies,” Rosalie said. “It’s none of those things … He puts me on an emotional pedestal, you know. He listens. He’s there, completely, one hundred percent. He’s not distracted … Nothing’s more important than I am.”

When it comes to physical intimacy, there are no conjugal visits allowed on death row, so Oscar and Rosalie have never consummated their relationship. But Rosalie said it doesn’t matter to her.

“I find it very interesting why people would be interested in my sex life,” Rosalie said. “It’s no one’s business, and you know, that’s not part of our relationship.”

As a licensed private investigator, Rosalie is working to help her husband and others who claim they are innocent of their crimes.
“I just want people to listen that there are innocent people who are wrongfully convicted. It happens,” Rosalie said.

But Oscar did plead guilty to kidnapping and raping a woman at gunpoint 27 years ago. When police came to arrest him for the murders of the three young Tampa women, he was in Ohio serving 25 to 75 years in Ohio for kidnapping and rape.

“I was a very angry man 27 years ago. Twenty-seven years later, would I do the same thing? No. I have learned a few things since then,” Oscar said.
Oscar did accept responsibility. He pled guilty to that crime,” Rosalie said. “And I believe – ’cause I know Oscar very well – if he had committed these three murders, he would have pled to something other than death. And never did that. He’s always professed his innocence.”

Rosalie and Oscar blame investigators for putting him on death row. Oscar can’t say where he was on the nights of the three murders, but he strongly denies killing anyone.

In the next few weeks, Bolin will have two new hearings: one about a claim that another serial killer confessed to one of the murders and the other about whether the work of a discredited FBI agent should have an impact on Bolin’s convictions.

“I started this back on February the third 1995, and I’m going to finish it. I will finish this,” Rosalie said. “I don’t know how my story will end but it can never be said in the text that I didn’t try.”

Tune in for the full story on ABC News’ “20/20” on Friday, Aug. 21 at 10 p.m. ET.

Boston Bomber Sentenced To Death By Lethal Injection For The Boston Marathon Attacks

securitycam
21 year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev shows no remorse and flips a security camera the middle finger. Jurors were showed this photo prior to him being sentenced to death on May 15, 2015.

At this point the 21 year old Russian punk  “Boston Bomber” may be one of the (if not THE) most hated men in the United States.

A jury sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to die by way of lethal injection for his role in the 2013 gruesome terrorist bombing that rocked Boston, leaving hundreds wounded, and horrifying the rest of the world.

I personally have never had a strong opinion about the death penalty, but in this case I believe that the jury did the right thing. I don’t think that a person who intentionally set out to kill hundreds of innocent people deserves to breathe any more air, especially when he shows the world how he really feels by flipping the bird to a security camera and according to reports, seemingly “bored” throughout his death penalty trial.

Tsarnaev’s attorneys are more than likely already filling out the appeals paperwork, which (unfortunately) means that taxpayers will have to continue to house and feed this menace until the appeals process is exhausted.

Do you think the jury made the right decision to sentence him to death?

Peep the article.

Join the discussion.

Boston Marathon Terriost Attacks 2013
A bomb set by the Tsarnaev brothers can be seen going off as Boston Marathon runners enter the finish line.

Via Time:

A jury sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death Friday for the Boston Marathon bombing, sweeping aside pleas that he was just a “kid” who fell under the influence of his fanatical older brother.

Tsarnaev, 21, stood with his hands folded, his head slightly bowed, upon learning his fate, decided after 14 hours of deliberations over three days. It was the most closely watched terrorism trial in the U.S. since the Oklahoma City bombing case two decades ago.

The decision sets the stage for what could be the nation’s first execution of a terrorist in the post-9/11 era, though the case is likely to go through years of appeals. The execution would be carried out by lethal injection.

The 12-member federal jury had to be unanimous for Tsarnaev to get the death penalty. Otherwise, he would have automatically received a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Bombing victim Sydney Corcoran, who nearly bled to death and whose mother lost both legs, said: “My mother and I think that NOW he will go away and we will be able to move on. Justice. In his own words, ‘an eye for an eye.’”

Tsarnaev’s father, Anzor Tsarnaev, reached by phone by the Associated Press in the Russian region of Dagestan, let out a deep moan upon hearing the news and hung up.

In a statement, Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the bombing a “cowardly attack” and added: “The ultimate penalty is a fitting punishment for this horrific crime, and we hope that the completion of this prosecution will bring some measure of closure to the victims and their families.”

Three people were killed and more than 260 wounded when two pressure-cooker bombs packed with shrapnel exploded near the finish line on April 15, 2013.

The former college student was convicted last month of all 30 federal charges against him, including use of a weapon of mass destruction and the killing of an MIT police officer during the Tsarnaev brothers’ getaway attempt. Seventeen of those charges carried the possibility of the death penalty.

Tsarnaev’s chief lawyer, death penalty specialist Judy Clarke, admitted at the very start of the trial that he participated in the bombings, bluntly telling the jury: “It was him.”

But the defense argued that Dzhokhar was an impressionable 19-year-old who was led astray by his volatile and domineering 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, who was portrayed as the mastermind of the plot to punish the U.S. for its wars in Muslim countries.

 Prosecutors depicted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as an equal partner in the attack, saying he was so coldhearted he planted a bomb on the pavement behind a group of children, killing an 8-year-old boy. To drive home their point, prosecutors cited the message he scrawled in the dry-docked boat where he was captured: “Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop.” And they opened their case in the penalty phase with a startling photo of him giving the finger to a security camera in his jail cell months after his arrest.
“This is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev —unconcerned, unrepentant and unchanged,” prosecutor Nadine Pellegrin said.

The jurors also heard grisly and heartbreaking testimony from numerous bombing survivors who described seeing their legs blown off or watching someone next to them die.

Killed in the bombing were Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager from Medford; and 8-year-old Martin Richard, who had gone to watch the marathon with his family. Massachusetts Institute of Technology police Officer Sean Collier was shot to death in his cruiser days later. Seventeen people lost legs in the bombings.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died days after the bombing when he was shot by police and run over by Dzhokhar during a chaotic getaway attempt.

The speed with which the jury reached a decision surprised some, given that the panel had to fill out a detailed, 24-page worksheet in which the jurors tallied up the factors for and against the death penalty.

The possible aggravating factors cited by the prosecution included the cruelty of the crime, the killing of a child, the amount of carnage inflicted, and lack of remorse. The possible mitigating factors included Tsarnaev’s age, the possible influence of his brother and his turbulent, dysfunctional family.

The jury agreed with the prosecution on 11 of the 12 aggravating factors cited, including lack of remorse. In weighing possible mitigating factors, only three of the 12 jurors found he acted under the influence of his brother.

Tsarnaev did not take the stand at his trial, and he slouched in his seat through most of the case, a seemingly bored look on his face. In his only flash of emotion during the months-long case, he cried when his Russian aunt took the stand.

The only evidence of any remorse on his part in the two years since the attack came from the defense’s final witness, Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and staunch death penalty opponent made famous by the movie “Dead Man Walking.”

She quoted Tsarnaev as saying of the bombing victims: “No one deserves to suffer like they did.”

Tsarnaev’s lawyers also called teachers, friends and Russian relatives who described him as a sweet and kind boy who cried during “The Lion King.” The defense called him a “good kid.”

The defense argued that sparing his life and instead sending him to the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, would be a harsh punishment and would best allow the bombing victims to move on with their lives without having to read about years of death penalty appeals.

U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. will formally impose the sentence at a later date during a hearing in which bombing victims will be allowed to speak. Tsarnaev will also be given the opportunity to address the court.

The Tsarnaevs —ethnic Chechens — lived in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan and the volatile Dagestan region, near Chechnya, before moving to the U.S. about a decade before the bombings. They settled in Cambridge, just outside Boston.