Occasionally, they grab lunch together when they're in the same part of town.
Often, however, it's just two of them for lunch. It's rare that all three show up at the same place at the same time.
Except for court.
The three never miss court.
"Nothing about the case subsides with us," said Kathleen "Kay" Reeves. "It's as though it is imprinted on your mind, like a child's mind at birth."
Reeves, 67, Natalie Holley, 80, and Donna Witmer, 56, have lost daughters to violent deaths.
The suspect in all three deaths is the same man: Oscar Ray Bolin.
In July 1991, Bolin was convicted in the death of Holley's daughter. Three months later, he was convicted in the slaying of Witmer's daughter. In 1992, he was convicted in the killing of Reeves' daughter.The three mothers sat through the three trials, then through three sentencing hearings where Bolin received the death penalty.
In 1994, they comforted each other when all three convictions were overturned.
They sat through three more trials, then three more reversals on appeal.
In 2001, Bolin was again convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Reeves' daughter. Last year, the Florida Supreme Court unanimously upheld that conviction and sentence.
The three were overjoyed.
Today, lawyers will select a new jury as prosecutors try, once again, to convict Bolin in the death of Holley's daughter. Immediately after that trial, another trial will begin, seeking to convict Bolin in the death of Witmer's daughter.
Reeves, fulfilling a pledge she made years ago, will sit next to Holley and Witmer throughout both trials -- and throughout any future hearings, should they be necessary.
"You just fortify yourself with the fact that this is another nail in the coffin," she said. "His coffin."
The mothers will lean on each other, Reeves said, until Bolin is executed.
Three deaths
In January 1986, Natalie "Blanche" Holley, 25, was abducted after she left the north Tampa Church's Chicken where she worked. Her stabbed body was found the next day in a Lutz orange grove.
Ten months later, Witmer's daughter disappeared from a shopping center parking lot in Carrollwood. The body of Stephanie Anne Collins, 17, was found on Dec. 5, 1986, with blunt injuries to her head.
On the same day authorities found Collins' body, they recovered the body of Reeves' daughter, Teri Lynn Matthews, beside railroad tracks in Pasco County.
The previous night, Matthews, 26, was abducted from the Land O' Lakes post office. She had been beaten, raped and stabbed, authorities said.
The three mothers would wait four years for an arrest.
The case broke when Bolin's wife came forward, saying she was with him when he dumped Collins' body.
At the time of Bolin's arrest, he was serving a 75-year prison sentence in Ohio for the abduction and rape of a truck-stop waitress.
After Bolin's murder convictions, the Florida Supreme Court granted new trials citing improper testimony from his wife, too much pretrial publicity and jury selection issues.
In his most recent appeal, for his Pasco County conviction in Matthews' death, the high court unanimously rejected defense arguments that some jurors were improperly excused from duty.
Although this week's retrials will take place in Hillsborough County, the prosecutor, Michael Halkitis, is an assistant state attorney from Pasco County. Local prosecutors recused themselves because Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober has previously represented Bolin.
Back To Court
Over the years, as newspapers and television news stations have reported on Bolin's many trials and appeals, he also has made headlines for an unusual relationship.
In 1996, via a telephone ceremony, Oscar Ray Bolin married Rosalie Martinez.
Martinez, now Rosalie Bolin, worked for the Hillsborough County Public Defender's Office as a death penalty mitigation expert.
Long before the marriage, rumors of the romance abounded in courthouse and jail circles.
The public defender's office removed Rosalie Bolin from Oscar Ray Bolin's case because she was spending too much time on it, at the expense of other cases. She also was banned from the Hillsborough County Jail after detention deputies saw her caressing Bolin's neck and Bolin was found with a love note from her, prosecutors have said.
Now, Rosalie Bolin works as a private investigator, specializing in death penalty mitigation.
Through her husband's lawyer, she declined to comment until after the trial.
In previous interviews, she has said she will not give up fighting for her husband.
As prosecutors and defense attorneys have prepared for trial, Natalie Holley has braced herself for another stress-filled week.
"There's no way I can prepare for it," she said on Thursday. "I just have to grit my teeth and keep a straight face."
She said she always worries at the beginning of a trial, but she recently spoke to Witmer and Reeves on the phone. They talked about the pending trial, the past appeals, their other children.
"They are providing strength for me," Holley said. "I didn't know either of them at my daughter's trial, the first one. That's where we met, and we've been together ever since."
