by Bill Wallace
Dwight Moore accompanied Blanche to Reid’s funeral, supporting her on his arm as she displayed all the signs of a grieving widow. Her grief assuaged somewhat by the $75,000 left to her by her former lover.
Moore and Blanche left a decent period of mourning before getting married. The wedding was delayed though until 21 April 1989, while Blanche recovered from a mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Her husband of just two weeks was taken ill while they were still on honeymoon in New Jersey – the symptoms were violent stomach cramps, diarrhoea, vomiting and loss of feeling in his limbs. The conclusion – too much arsenic in his body. Moore survived, but Blanche’s run of luck had quite simply come to an end. Despite the fact that her husband refused to believe that Blanche had had anything to do with his illness, the police were not so convinced and she was arrested on 18 July 1989 and charged with the first-degree murder of Raymond Reid.
The trial opened on 21 October 1990. Blanche was adamant that she was innocent and denied ever giving Reid any contaminated food. However, there were just too many witnesses to say that she regularly brought food to the hospital and the jury was convinced of her guilt.
Blanche was found guilty of Reid’s murder on 14 November 1990. The presiding judge announced to Blanche that she was to die by lethal injection.
Blanche Moore is currently under the jurisdiction of the North Carolina Correctional Institute for Women – prisoner number 0288088. Because of the automatic appeals system, she has been able to delay her execution for nearly twenty years, while charges are still pending in the deaths of several other of her suspected victims.
Karla Faye Tucker
As a gospel singer sang Amazing Grace, her voice was drowned out by the crowd outside Mountain View Prison in Gatesvill, Texas, chanting ‘Kill the bitch!’ It was 3 February 1998 and Karla Faye Tucker had just been killed by lethal injection, the first woman to be executed in the state of Texas since 1863.
The young Karla Faye had struggled with self-esteem. For a start, her two older sisters, Kathi and Kari, were far better looking than her. They were blonde, blue-eyed and fair of skin. She, on the other hand was a small brunette with dimpled cheeks, hideously self-conscious about a large birthmark on her arm. She was a loner, finding it difficult to make friends or communicate with the other kids at school and in her neighbourhood. The Tuckers were a couple who could not live with each other and could not live without each other. They married and divorced several times before finally calling it a day when Karla was ten. Larry, her father, was given custody and it all began to go downhill, especially when, during the divorce proceedings, Karla learned why she looked so different to her sisters. Larry was not her father. Karla suddenly felt like she did not belong to anyone. She was devastated.
Her older sisters were into drugs and Karla, hanging around with them and their older friends, was already smoking marijuana by the age of ten. But, it was never enough for her and at eleven she began mainlining heroin. She first had sex at the age of twelve when she went to the house of a friend of her sister’s, a member of the Bandidos biker gang. She got high with this considerably older man who then took her out on his bike and the two had sex in the countryside.
Karla Faye was out of control. Her father rarely saw her as he worked until late in the evening. She dropped out of school around the age of thirteen, but no one really noticed. A year later, she was back living with her mother, Carolyn, now working as a prostitute. Carolyn took Karla Faye to work with her one night and Karla also began to earn her living that way. She would later say she did it simply because she was so anxious to please her mother. They had some good times. Carolyn was a groupie and the two toured with a number of bands, including the Allman Brothers, the Eagles and the Marshall Tucker Band. It was exciting and all was experienced in a haze of sex, drugs and rock and roll.
In 1975, aged sixteen, Karla Faye got married to Stephen Griffith, a mechanic. It was good at first, even though the two fought like a cat and dog, sometimes with their fists. But Karla Faye was not one to be tied down. She moved on.
In 1981, she befriended Shawn Dean who introduced her to her next boyfriend, Danny Garrett, a drug dealer and part-time barman. One weekend in June 1981, there was a three-day party at the house in Houston, Texas where Karla Faye was now living with Danny. It was for her sister Kari’s birthday and there was a copious supply of pills and other drugs. Before long, the whole thing had developed into an orgy with everyone high or drunk or both. Karla was especially trashed as she had been doing coke and speed, a drug that she usually stayed away from because of the effect it had on her, making her ‘go crazy’, as she described it. This night she was injecting it.
There was some bad feeling at the party because Shawn Dean’s biker husband Jerry Lynn, had recently beaten her up, not for the first time, and she had walked out on him. Karla Faye had not got on with Jerry Lynn, ever since he had wheeled his motorbike into her house, and wanted to go round to his house to have it out with him. The group of friends spent the evening seething about Jerry Lynn and discussing revenge. Danny had gone to work at a local bar and Karla Faye and a friend Jimmy Leibrant drove over to pick him up when he finished at 2 a.m. He had been thinking about the Jerry Lynn situation all evening and had concocted a plan. They would go over to his house and steal his Harley Davidson. As Jerry Lynn was a member of a biker gang, it was the most hurtful thing they could do to him. The others loved it.
They went back to their house and changed into dark clothing, also arming themselves, Jimmy grabbing Danny’s shotgun and Danny slipping a .38 down inside one of his boots. Karla Faye later claimed they were more for protection in the rough neighbourhood where Jerry Lynn lived, rather than to use against him.
They parked outside his house and easily got inside. By the light of a torch, they saw Jerry Lynn’s precious hog in the hallway. He had obviously been working on it as it was partially dismantled and tools and engine parts were spread out around it. Karla Faye though that it might be better to steal some parts of the bike rather than the whole thing. Suddenly, however, a light came on off the hallway. Jerry Lynn had heard them. He growled, ‘Who the hell’s out there?’ Karla Faye froze, but Danny grabbed a hammer from the toolbox on the floor and ran into the room, swinging it hard at Jerry Lynn’s head. The sickening blow threw the biker backwards onto his pillow, blood seeping from his nostrils and the corner of his mouth. Danny did not stop there, however. He continued to smash the hammer down on him.
Watching, Karla Faye suddenly saw movement beside Jerry Lynn. There was a girl in bed with him. Jerry Lynn had met Debbie Thornton earlier that day at a party and had brought her back to his place that evening. Karla Faye saw red. She was furious that he had been with a girl while his wife’s cuts and bruises had not yet healed. She picked up a pickaxe that for some reason Jerry Lynn had brought indoors, raised it high above her head and brought its point down on Thornton. Thornton screamed and a gurgling sound emerged from deep inside her. The noise enraged Karla Faye even more and she brought the pickaxe down on the helpless girl’s blood-soaked body again and again. Blood sprayed over the walls and over Karla Faye as the girl’s body was reduced to a pulpy mess. She told friends later that she experienced a triple orgasm during those horrific moments.
Finished with Thornton, she brought the pickaxe down on Jerry Lynn a few times, venting the hatred she had always felt for him.
The bodies were discovered the next day by the landlord of the building, but it did not take long for the investigating police officers to learn that Karla Faye and Danny had been threatening to do something to Jerry Lynn and had then bragged about killing him. Everybody talked, even Jimmy Leibrant who told them he had remained outside during the murders. He would eventually turn state’s evidence and be allowed to walk free after the trial.
Karla Faye and Danny were indicted in September 1983 and tried separately. She pleaded not-guilty. While awaiting trial, however, she borrowed a Bible and began reading it in her prison cell. She
claimed that she had been reading it when suddenly she found herself on her knees in the middle of her cell, pleading with God to forgive her. She was born again.
In capital cases, the death penalty was rarely sought for women, but in late 1984, Karla Faye was sentenced to death, as was Danny Garrett. He would die of liver disease nine years later during the appeals process, but Karla Faye’s appeals continued and were rebuffed. She tried to mitigate her acts by saying she was high on drugs when she carried them out, but again she was turned down.
Amazingly though, her story began to draw support, from often unexpected quarters. Television evangelist, Pat Robertson and Newt Gingrich, the Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, both argued for her sentence to be commuted. They were joined by voices from around the world such as Pope John Paul II and the World Council of Churches. Most surprising of all was Ron Carlson, brother of the murdered girl, Debbie Thornton, who became a frequent visitor to her in Gatesville Prison.
Her last appeal, after fourteen years on death row, was turned down on 28 January 1998. With the execution looking inevitable, she was asked by a reporter what she would be thinking about when she was lying on the gurney. She replied, ‘I’m certainly going to be thinking about what it’s like in heaven.’
On February 2, she was flown to Huntsville Prison where the state’s execution chamber was situated. She was described as ‘upbeat’ and ate a last meal of a banana, a peach and some salad. With her was the man she had married while in prison, Dana Brown, a member of the prison ministry group that visited Christian inmates, as well as some family and friends. Also there was Debbie’s brother, Ron Carlson.
The news that Texas Governor George W. Bush had rejected her appeal for clemency was relayed to her at 5.25 p.m. and she made her farewells to everyone. An hour later, she was escorted to the execution chamber with its one-way glass for spectators to view the proceedings. Present, apart from her own family, were the victims’ families.
She sat back on the gurney and was strapped down. Her last words contained apologies to the victims’ relatives for what she had done and thanks to her husband and the prison warden for their kindness. She closed her eyes, coughed, groaned and then went silent as the drugs entered her veins.
Karla Faye was going to see heaven at last.
Judi Buenoano
She spent thirteen years on death row at the Broward Correctional Center at Pembroke Pines in Florida, writing letters, crocheting blankets and baby clothes and teaching the Bible to other inmates when she was not tied up with appeals and receiving death warrants. Her cell was six-feet wide by nine-feet long and she ate at strictly regulated times. Breakfast was at 5 a.m., lunch could be eaten between 10.30 a.m. and 11 a.m. and the last meal of the day was served between 4 p.m. and 4.30 p.m. Meals were eaten in her cell, distributed from a trolley and she was permitted a plate and spoons with which to eat. Visitors were allowed at the weekend, between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. and she was allowed to receive mail any time except weekends and holidays. In her cell she could enjoy cigarettes, snacks, radios and black and white televisions. There was no air conditioning and she was not allowed to associate with other inmates. She wore an orange t-shirt and blue trousers and was counted at least once an hour. Out of her cell, she was always escorted, wearing handcuffs, even when she showered or went into the exercise yard. At all other times, she was confined to her cell. Only if she had a medical appointment, visit from her lawyer or an interview with the media could she leave it.
This was Judi Buenoano’s world as she waited to die for the murder of her husband, her fiancé and her son. They were the murders for which they called her the ‘Black Widow’.
Judias Welty was born at Quanah in Texas on 4 April 1943, her father was an itinerant farm worker. She claimed her mother was a native American, but she never really got to know her as she died of tuberculosis before Judias was two years old. Judi, as she was known, and her brother, Robert, went to live with their grandparents while two older siblings were put up for adoption. It was not the best of starts and it really did not get any better.
Her father remarried and settled in Roswell, New Mexico, where Judi joined him and his new wife. They were abusive parents, however, and Judi was beaten, burned with cigarettes and made to work like a slave around the house. Rarely did she get enough to eat. Finally, at the age of fourteen, she snapped, scalding two of her stepbrothers with hot grease and flying at her father and stepmother, striking out with anything she could get her hands on. They called the police and Judi went to jail for sixty days, sharing her cell with grown-up prostitutes. When they asked her if she wanted to go home she opted for reform school instead. At least she would get enough to eat there.
Foothills High School was a girls’ reformatory in Albuquerque where she remained until she graduated in 1959, aged sixteen. Returning to Roswell, she worked as a nurse’s aide, using the name Anna Schultz. She had a son, Michael Schultz, but never divulged the name of his father who was rumoured to be a pilot from a nearby US Air Force base.
On 21 January 1962, she looked like she had found happiness when she married an air force officer, James Goodyear. Four years later they had a son, James Jr. At the same time, James Goodyear adopted her son, Michael Schultz. A year later, in 1967, a daughter, Kimberly, was born. By this time, the family had moved to Orlando in Florida, where Judi opened the Conway Acres Child Care Centre. Her husband was listed as joint owner in the enterprise but he remained in the air force and would soon be sent to do a tour of duty in Vietnam.
Three months after his return from Vietnam, James was admitted to the US Naval hospital in Orlando suffering from an unknown illness. He deteriorated and finally died on 15 September 1971. Doctors could not find out what had killed him. Five days after his death, Judi cashed in three insurance policies she had taken out on his life. Before the year was out, she was on to the insurance company again after her house burned down, picking up $90,000.
It had been a difficult year, but at least she wasn’t short of cash.
In 1972, she relocated to Pensacola, moving in with a man called Bobby Joe Morris. Meanwhile, she managed to get her son Michael into a residential facility for military dependents. He had become disruptive in school and suffered from learning difficulties.
When Morris moved to Trinidad in Colorado in 1977, Judi and the family, including Michael, followed, but not before she had collected the insurance on another house that had burned down in Pensacola.
Soon after arriving in Trinidad, Morris began to complain of feeling unwell and went into hospital in early January 1978. On 21 January, he came home but two days later, he collapsed as they ate dinner and was rushed back into hospital. He died on 28 January, of cardiac arrest and metabolic acidosis, according to his death certificate. A few weeks later three insurance policies paid out substantial sums to Judi.
Morris’s family were suspicious, however, and believed that Judi had poisoned him. Furthermore, they were convinced he was not the first man she had killed. In 1974, when Judi and Morris were visiting his family in Brewton, Alabama, a man was found dead in one of the town’s hotels, shot with a .22 calibre weapon and with his throat slashed. Morris’s mother had overheard a chilling conversation between Judi and her son in which Judi had been heard to tell him, ‘The son of a bitch shouldn’t have come up here in the first place. He knew if he came up here he was gonna die.’ Further confirmation that they had killed the man came in the night when Morris shouted out in his sleep, ‘Judi, we should never have done that terrible thing’. The murder remained unsolved, however. Police could find no fingerprints or evidence of any kind.
On 3 May 1978, Judi legally changed her name and those of her children to Buenoano; Spanish for Goodyear, the name of her first husband. They moved back to Pensacola where she bought a house in the Gulf Breeze suburb. Her son, Michael, was still trouble, however. He had dropped out of school and in June 1979, enlisted in the army, being posted to Fort Benning in Georgia. He stopped of
f to visit his mother en route to Georgia but by the time he arrived at the military base, he was complaining of feeling unwell. When he was checked out, he was discovered to have seven times the normal level of arsenic in his body. There was nothing they could do as he horrifically lost the use of his arms and his legs. He eventually left hospital wearing braces on his legs and with a prosthetic device on one arm. He went back to be cared for by his mother.
On 13 May 1980, Judi took Michael and his younger brother out canoeing on the East River, near Milton, Florida. Suddenly, their boat capsised and although she and her younger son made it to the shore, Michael with his heavy braces and prosthetic arm, drowned. It seemed like a simple but tragic accident, but Military investigators persisted in their search for evidence as to what really happened. When, in September, Judi cashed in a $20,000 insurance policy she had taken out on Michael’s life, the police renewed their interest in the case. There were two insurance policies and when handwriting experts examined Michael’s signature on them, they concluded it had been forged both times.
Judi, meanwhile, had opened a beauty parlour in Gulf Breeze and had a new man in her life, Pensacola businessman, John Gentry. She told him she had been at nursing school, had been head of nursing at West Florida Hospital and had PhDs in biochemistry and psychology from the University of Alabama. Her lies paid dividends as Gentry lavished gifts and Caribbean cruises on her.
In October 1982, Judi and John Gentry took out life insurance policies on one another and later, Judi increased the coverage on John from $50,000 to $500,000 without his knowledge. A couple of months later, Gentry was suffering from dizzy spells and constantly throwing up. It might just have had something to do with the ‘vitamin’ pills that she had been giving him. He spent twelve days in hospital in mid-December, noticing that his symptoms disappeared when he stopped taking the pills. Strangely, however, he took his suspicions no further and continued his relationship with Judi.
