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Carny town residents abuzz over mystery bodyThe Associated Press•a*“ GIBSONTON — Some people in this carnival hamlet think a body just unearthed in a backyard might be that of a transvestite who disappeared 11 years ago.Because of decomposition, police Thursday said they didn’t know if the remains are that of a• 3?V Vjman or a woman.Jimmy Estep, however, thinks he knows who it is: Ruby Bota — a man pretending to be a woman.Estep had just retired from the drag queen circuit to train chimpanzees when he met Ruby in Miami in the 1960s. The two men met again years later in Gibsonton, about 40 miles south of Tampa and known as the winter home for carnival performers.Ruby had retired to raise blue parakeets and orchids. Estep said Ruby had settled down with a man named Bob Bota and they lived as husband and wife.“Everyone knew she was a man. He had nothing to hide with us,” said friend Lorene Clark. “I know she didn’t fall off the face of this earth.”Some say Ruby took off in a private plane with wealthy friends to spend the rest of his life in Italy.Others think Ruby never left Hillsborough County. They say he was buried behind his trailer in Riverview, just north of Gibsonton.An old friend of Ruby’s contacted Judy Rock, the daughter of Jeanie “The Half-Lady” Tomaini. and she began to ask questions of Ruby’s friends. Rock eventually contacted the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office.Workers with the sheriff’s office discovered a body behind Ruby’sold property in the Tropical Acres mobile home park on Wednesday. Homicide investigators won’t disclose details and have not identified the body, but friends believe Ruby Bota has been found.“I feel in my heart it’s her,” said Kim Longwell, at his food stand outside a tomato packing plant. “Not a year goes by that I don’t think about her.”Longwell, like many Gibsonton dwellers, takes off every year to hit the carnival circuit. For several years, he spent his off-season in the Botas’ spare trailer.He and Ruby became close friends. “She was absolutely a man,” Longwell said. “He had breasts and everything else.” Longwell said he remembers Ruby was proud when he got breast implants in the early 1980s.Ruby disappeared sometime in1988.Robert and Ruby Bota are listed as husband and wife on the deed to the property where the body was found. In 1990, Bota, 51, married Sabiyna Anne Boatman, 18. They divorced the following year. Melody Hanson, Boatman’s mother, now lives on the property.Estep said he met Ruby through another drag queen named Cleo in Miami Beach. “She was a fine person and member of our gay community. I know in my heart she was buried over there. I know someone killed her.”Billy Rodgers, who runs a parrot shop and costume clothing store, said many residents discounted the story of Ruby’s European flight.“Where is she going to meet wealthy Europeans in Gibsonton?” he asked. “At the grocery store?”
Newspaper Details
Panama City News Herald
Panama City, Florida, US
Fri, May 14, 1999
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Chad G.
USA 06 May 2023
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