How do you kill your whole family and almost get it clean

For two decades, Judy Buenoano lived a free and beautiful life, despite her heinous crimes.

She was murdered, you see her husband and her lover, even her own son, and all this to get her compensation insurance.

So much so that she was shot by the law enforcement authorities, believing that she was the one who once planted a bomb in the car of her last lover. But this was to be the big mistake of her life.

He was tried as a serial killer. She may not have had the murderous productivity of other serial killers, but she remained notorious for the embarrassing fact that she killed people close to her.

After each murder, she even saw the system reward her with thousands of dollars. She lived the big life with the damn money and no one ever suspected her of anything.

Only when her fiancé’s car mysteriously exploded in 1983 would it enter her radar police.

By 1985 many and extremely tragic things would have come to light for the woman they named “Black Widow”. It was her greed that armed her hand every time, a greed that knew no bounds.

When she was executed, she would even write History: she was the first death row inmate to be executed in Florida in 150 years. But also the first woman to die in the state in the electric chair.

This is her unthinkable story.

The first years of Judy Buenoano

The woman who would become known as Judy Buenoano was born in April 1943 in a Texas town as Judias Welty. The little girl lost her mother at the age of 4 and lived her childhood from relatives ‘house to relatives’ house and foster families then.

He would later claim that he had been physically and sexually abused in some of the families he had gone through.

Her life seemed to return to normal when at the age of 10 she went to live with her biological father and his new wife in New Mexico.

Despite the lost years, she managed to finish her basic education, but became pregnant at the age of 17. And in 1961 she gave birth to her son, Michael. Unknown father, declared at the registry office.

With a newborn in her arms, she met an Air Force squad, James Goodyear, and she would be married to him until next year.

A few years later, the family welcomed two more children, James and Kimberly. The late 1960s will find the family living in Orlando of Florida. Her husband now served there, on an air base, before going to fight for a time in Vietnam (1971).

The veteran survived the hardships and returned healthy and strong, but something strange started to happen when he came home in May. He suffered from a multitude of strange symptoms. He would be dead by September.

The delighted widow received $ 28,000 in military life insurance and another $ 64,000 in aid from the Vietnam Veterans Fund.

The Black Widow is born

With the bead left by the deceased, Buenoano moved with her children to sunny Florida. There she met in 1972 the new man of her life, someone Bobby Morris.

Morris wanted to move to Colorado and Buenoano gladly followed him. But a few years later, he too appeared mysterious symptoms. If one watched, one would see that it was creepily the same as what Goodyear had experienced.

And like her first husband, by 1978 her partner would be dead. Again the forensic report spoke of a heart attack.

Under state family law, Buenoano was the legal beneficiary and received the money from the 3 life insurances that the second deceased had. And he moved to Florida again.

This time, however, she changed her last name, making “Buenoano” a poor Spanish translation of “Goodyear”.

The following year (1979) her eldest son joined military. And once again he began to suffer from strange symptoms. Michael fell seriously ill. This time, however, the doctors managed to make a diagnosis.

The young man had been poisoned with arsenic, a tragic condition that affected his arms and legs. He was forced to leave the army and could now walk only with heavy metal supports.

The next year the mother offered to take her paraplegic son for a walk on a river to canoe. The canoe was overturned, however. She swam ashore and was saved. He was swallowed by the water because of the weight of the supports.

The medical examiner wrote drowning and the tragic mother was there again to get the new money from his own life insurance…

The fatal mistake

Until now the Buenoano modus operandi has been quiet and torturous. The men of her life were watered by a male and her son was drowned in an isolated area.

But the next time he tried to kill someone, it would not be so peaceful. And it would bring the prosecuting authorities after it.

After the death of her son, Buenoano started dating a new flirt, John Gentry. He was definitely impressed the first time he saw her: “Judy was standing at bar, all dressed in black. He wore black very often. In fact, psychologically, I think that says a lot about her. “

Buenoano convinced her future fiancé that they had to make life insurance and be a beneficiary for each other. If something happened to him, Buenoano would receive $ 500,000. It was time for the Black Widow to get a job.

She initially tried to eat him by giving him “vitamins C” when he caught a cold at some point. The pills made him seriously ill, but fortunately for him he had to go to the hospital for his symptoms.

He would return to the hospital soon. As if by a miracle he escaped from her bomb which had been planted in his car in 1983. A bombing attempt could not, however, go unnoticed in the small provincial town. The police were interested to know what and how.

“Judy should have stopped one death before,” said Ted Chamberlin, a police inspector in the town where Buenoano lived.

Chamberlin patriotically investigated the case and soon found himself in the woman’s footsteps. Her friends told the detective that since the end of 1982 she had been telling them that her fiancé was suffering from an incurable disease and was in his last days.

Before arresting her, she asked for the exhumation of her husband and son and it was revealed that both of them were victims of arsenic poisoning.

The end of the Black Widow

Buenoano was found guilty in 1984 of attempted murder of Gentry. As the trial progressed, police retrieved evidence of her other crimes. She would soon be convicted of killing her husband and son.

Gentry was sentenced to 12 years in prison, his son to life in prison and death penalty for her husband.

While this was happening, the Colorado prosecutor’s office managed to tie her up with the murder of Morris, but decided not to prosecute as he had already been sentenced to death in Florida.

Her controversial case has persuaded police in several states to reopen some files and the findings have been appalling.

Buenoano appeared to be linked to a 1974 Alabama homicide case, as well as the mysterious death of another partner.

The exhumation of the body of Gerald Dossett again showed traces of poisoning with male but again no new prosecutions were instituted, as she was already a death row inmate.

Although there was no doubt about her criminal activity, she never confessed to the murders. Nor did he show any remorse.

She did not say anything even when it turned out that the “vitamins” she was feeding her fiancé contained arsenic and paraformaldehyde.

“She is like a black widow,” she told the courtroom, “she feeds on her comrades and little ones.”

The death row inmate appealed the decision, but lost it. And so on March 30, 1998 she ate her last meal. The 54-year-old asked for boiled vegetables, fresh strawberries and tea.

At 7:00 in the morning she was tied up in electric chair. By 7:13 she would be dead. Even then he refused to admit the murders. When asked if she had one last thing to say, she replied indifferently: “No, sir.”

He died as he had lived, quietly. Only under the undisturbed surface was hidden a guilty secret…