She Outsmarted a Serial Killer at 17 — Then Helped Put Him on Death Row By Christina Coulter

At 17, Lisa McVey was kidnapped by serial killer Bobby Joe Long and held for 26 terrifying hours. Blindfolded and brutalized, she memorized every detail she could — then managed to talk her way to freedom. Her quick thinking and presence of mind helped bring him to justice and end his killing spree. 

Long grabbed McVey as she rode her bicycle home from a Krispy Kreme Shop on November 3, 1984, dragging her into his Dodge Magnum at gunpoint. By that point, according to The Washington Post, he had already murdered eight women across Tampa. 

Throughout the drive to his apartment, Long threatened to kill McVey if she made a sound — but she had already begun calculating how she might escape and leave a trail behind. 

Although Long had blindfolded her and bound her hands, she memorized landmarks they passed, like distinctive curves in the road.

Once they reached their destination, she counted the number of stairs up to Long’s apartment, and tried to leave fingerprints on as many surfaces as she could — including a bathroom towel and door handles — hoping that police would find them later, she told Fox 13 Tampa.

“At one time he placed my hands on his face,” McVey told the outlet. “There were pockmarks, a small mustache, small ears, short hair, clean-cut, kind of stout, but not overweight; a big guy.”

Over the course of 26 hours, Long raped the 17-year-old over and over again at gunpoint.

But McVey managed to keep her composure, speaking in a calm, almost sympathetic tone — as though he were “a 4-year-old,” she said.

“I said, ‘Listen, it’s unfortunate how we met, but I can be your girlfriend. I could take care of you, and no one ever has to know,” she told the outlet.

The teen told Long that she had a sick father only she could care for and that she needed to return home — a tactic that she believes helped humanize her in his eyes.

Her tactics worked, and Long dropped her off to a spot near her home and the abduction more than a day earlier. 

“So he drove off. I pulled my blindfold down, and the first thing I saw was this gorgeous, beautiful oak tree. That’s the moment I knew my life was about to change for the good,” she told Fox 13. “I saw the branches of new life.”

She immediately went to the police. There, McVey recounted everything she could remember, including precise details about Long’s car interior, his apartment layout, physical features she’d detected without sight and even the time period when he’d used an ATM, per WFLA.

Within two weeks — but after he had murdered two more women, per The Netline — Long was arrested, bringing his eight-month killing spree to an end.

Nearly 35 years later, McVey sat in the front row at her rapist’s execution, per The Washington Post.

“I wanted to be the first person he saw,” she told the outlet.

McVey later joined the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department — the same agency that arrested her abductor — eventually serving as a school resource officer. She worked on cases involving child protection and sex crimes, using her own experience to help others and teach kids how to stay safe in dangerous situations.

“[I’m] a protector. No one’s going to get hurt on my watch,” she told Fox 13. “That was my motivation to become a police officer — I’m no longer a victim.”

“I’m not embarrassed to say I was raped,” she told The Netline. “I tell kids if somebody tries to grab them, scream as loud as you can. And if they get taken anyway, they should mind their Ps and Qs and do whatever they can to survive. I tell them to be strong and draw on their own sense of self-preservation.”