Published October 7, 2005
TAMPA - It took eight murder trials for Oscar Ray Bolin Jr. to give the executioner the slip. But in the eyes of the law he's still a murderer.
On Friday, a jury found Bolin, 43, guilty of second-degree murder nearly 20 years after he stabbed Natalie Blanche Holley, 25, to death and dumped her body in a Lutz orange grove. Years after two separate juries convicted and sentenced Bolin to death on charges of murder, the outcome in the third trial was a stunning departure from the first-degree murder conviction prosecutors had hoped for and left the victim's family reeling.
"The jurors are not going to sleep well when they find out who this man is," said Holley's half-sister Anita Holley, 56. "The ones that capitulated -- because I heard there was a lot of fighting in the jury room -- I hold them responsible for a lot of my misery in my soul. I will be at his extermination."
Bolin, shook his head in seeming disbelief as a court clerk read the verdict and it became clear that after eight murder trials he had for the first time eluded the death penalty. His wife Rosalie Bolin smiled. Outside the courtroom, she said the decision would give her husband hope and vowed to keep fighting until Bolin is exonerated.
"I believe that Mr. Bolin was innocent and maybe this is one step closer to the truth," she said.
Bolin, who is also serving a 15- to 75-year sentence for a 1987 Ohio rape, remains on death row for his conviction on charges he murdered Teri Lynn Matthews, a 26-year-old bank clerk whose bludgeoned body was found in Pasco County on Dec. 5, 1986. Bolin was also tried three times in that case but last year the Florida Supreme Court upheld his conviction and death sentence. He was twice convicted for the December 1986 murder of 17-year-old Stephanie Collins, he could also still face the death penalty when he is tried for a third time on first-degree murder charges in that upcoming case.
