195: Serial Killer: Judi Buenoano

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Southern Fried true crime covers cases that
are not suitable for young listeners, and

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there may also be some explicit language
used. Listener discretion is advised. You

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know the old saying that poison is
a woman's weapon that comes from Sherlock Holmes

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and so being fiction, it's often
scoffed at over the past few years.

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I've seen that debunked in some actual
statistics. But that's because men commit ninety

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percent of the murders, So if
nine out of ten murderers are men,

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naturally they use more poison than women. I read an interesting Washington Post article

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when I looked up these stats yet
again, using FBI studies to break this

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down. Journalist Dan Keating explained that
you have to remove several factors first and

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foremost separate the statistics of men and
women, because, for instance, guns

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are the most popular weapon for both. But per Ee, with all guns

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removed, women are almost four times
as likely as men to use poison.

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It is used just over one percent
of killings by men and just over four

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percent of killings by women. I
could keep throwing statistics at you, but

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Arthur Conan Doyle was right when he
wrote that poison is a woman's weapon,

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and there are all kinds of theories
as to why. The one that makes

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the most sense to me is that
poison as much more likely to be used

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in killings in which the murderer knows
the victim. It's personal, and it's

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sneaky, less messy, and even
elegant, as Keating proposes. I don't

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cover serial killers often, but I
have covered several female killers, and they

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are almost always poisoners, known as
black widows, of course because that sounds

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sexier than serial killer, and their
victims are family, from their husbands and

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children to their in laws. So
we know poison is indeed a woman's weapon,

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and we know who she's most likely
to kill. But as always,

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it's the why that I find most
interesting. Welcome to episode one, ninety

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five serial killer Judy Buenano. In
nineteen eighty, doctor Michael Berry was a

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US Army physician with the Walter Reed
Army Hospital in Washington, DC, and

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in January of that year, he
met his new patient, eighteen year old

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Michael known as Mike Goodyear. Mike
was originally from Florida, and he had

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enlisted in the Army only seven months
before. In June of nineteen seventy nine,

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and back in June, Mike had
appeared to be a strong, healthy

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young man. He had to be, or else the Army wouldn't have taken

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him. Now, something was wrong
with Mike, but doctor Berry couldn't be

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one hundred percent sure why, or
why or even how. In October of

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nineteen seventy nine, Mike became inexplicably
sick. He was vomiting, having diarrhea,

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and getting really dizzy. By November, Mike was dealing with an awful

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rash, more vertigo, and persistent
tingling in his fingers and toes. The

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very next month, in December,
his lower extremities were paralyzed. He couldn't

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move from his elbows to his fingers, or from his knees to his toes.

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He was discharged from the Army as
a private less than a year after

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enlisting, and from January to April
of nineteen eighty he stayed at the Walter

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Reed Army Hospital in DC. There, doctor Barry determined that Mike had developed

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a nerve disease, one that had
killed many of the nerves in his arms

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and legs, and while Mike showed
some progress during his time at Walter reed

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the diagnosis was grim. In doctor
Barry's medical opinion, Mike wasn't going to

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regain the full use of arms or
legs ever. Again, the Pensacola News

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Journal reported that doctor Barry said he
might have improved slightly, but the best

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we hoped for was that he would
be able to wash himself, attend to

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his toilet needs, and feed himself. This must have been so frightening for

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Mike. Somehow, with no warning
and little explanation, he had gone from

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fully able to disabled in the blink
of an eye. When he left the

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wall to Reid Army Hospital, he
could walk no more than fifteen feet,

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and he had to do so with
the help of special metal leg braces,

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according to courtroom testimony and the Pensacola
News Journal. Some people did have a

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few theories as to why Mike experienced
this paralysis. One was that on October

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seventeenth of nineteen seventy nine, Mike
was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Montana.

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While there, he was exposed to
chlorine gas, But medical experts later

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determined that Mike's chlorine gas exposure could
not have caused to paralysis. Another theory

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for Mike's unexpected paralysis was a special
condition Mike had. It was called pikea.

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The Cleveland Clinic stated that PIKA is
an eating disorder where a person compulsively

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eats things that are not food.
Usually it's harmless and can be treated with

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therapy. But Mike was navigating pike
eating back in the nineteen sixties, seventies,

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and eighties, decades before mental health
support and therapy became mainstream. As

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a child, Mike had been known
to eat pencils, and according to his

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mother, he had once eaten paint
from a house built in nineteen o nine,

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before the eighties. There was a
chance that both of these items,

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the pencils and the paint, contained
lead, which, as you most certainly

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know, is a highly toxic metal
that you really should not eat. So

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maybe this was the reason for Mike's
unexpected nerve disease, But back in nineteen

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eighty, no one could say with
a hundred percent certainty, not even doctor

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Barry. In April of nineteen eighty, doctor Barry met with Mike and they

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talked about his upcoming return to Gulf
Briesce, Florida, where his family lived.

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He was going to stay with his
mother, thirty six year old Judy,

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and his brother fourteen year old James, and sister thirteen year old Kimberly.

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He told doctor Barry that he was
looking forward to a boat ride on

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the water. His family was going
canoeing to celebrate his return and ongoing recovery.

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But doctor Barry stopped Mike in his
tracks. He told him that unless

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trick precautions were taken, he shouldn't
get into the water. It would be

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horribly unsafe since there was simply no
way Mike could swim. In doctor Barry's

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court testimony, he explained, I
told him if he turned over, he

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would probably drown unless he was protected
with a life saving device. So imagine

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doctor Barry's surprise when, only one
month later he learned that Mike had died.

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He had been in a canoe with
his mother, Judy, and younger

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brother James, and the canoe had
tipped over, so on May thirteenth,

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nineteen eighty, nineteen year old Mike
drowned. A rescue squad recovered his body

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about a half a mile down stream. They found that Mike had been weighed

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down by about twelve pounds of leg
braces and he had not been wearing a

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life jacket at the time. Mike's
death seemed cut and draw. It was

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a tragic accident, yes, but
easily explained. People make risky decisions all

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the time that lead to their untimely
deaths, and this was no different.

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Right, Well, this is a
true crime podcast, and so you've probably

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already deduced that Mike's situation was in
fact quite different. Mike's mother, Judy,

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and his little brother James had strapped
Mike into a lawn chair in the

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center of the canoe, setting aside
the safety implications of that decision. Mike's

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metal braces would have been locked into
a sitting position, after all, he

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was supposed to sitting in that lawn
chair. So why was Mike's body recovered

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with the braces locked in a standing
position as if his legs were stuck straight

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out. And if the canoe had
capsized near the river bank where Judy and

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James told everyone it had, why
were Mike's sunglasses found floating in the center

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of the seventy foot wide river,
And what exactly had happened on that canoe.

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First, Judy and James told everyone
that Mike had cast a fishing line

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that had gotten caught in a tree
branch. The branch fell, and it,

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along with a startled snake relaxing on
the branch, landed in their boat.

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In the panic, the canoe tipped
over, but later Judy and James

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began telling people that they had hit
a submerged tree stump, and later after

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that they clarified Mike had cast a
fishing line, the tree branch fell and

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there was a snake on the branch, but they also had a submerged tree

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stump. Judy and James were adamant
that this was the series of unfortunate events

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that led to Mike's death. It
sounded crazy, but that's life. Crazy

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things happen. Investigators had to ask
one very important question. How could Mike

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paralyzed from the elbow to the fingertips
cast a fishing line. Someone was lying?

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But who and why? I'm going
to pause now for a short commercial

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break. Mike's mother, Judy Buenojuano, has several name changes, which is

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confusing, so we're going to use
all of her names chronologically and telling her

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story. She was born Anna lou
Welty in April of nineteen forty three to

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parents Jesse and Mary Lou in Quanta, Texas. And before we begin really

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diving into the life of Anna Lou
Welty, I need you to know an

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important caveat There is a lot of
misinformation about Anna circulating around the internet,

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as if it is fact. Books
have been authored and documentaries have been filmed

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with blatantly incorrect information. It's actually
a little crazy, but I guess it

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goes to show that if one person
publishes a falsehood, others will repeat it.

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For today's episode, I have done
my damnedest to ensure every piece of

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information about Anna and her family is
correct. For the most part, I've

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used court documents, newspaper articles,
and direct accounts from people involved to ensure

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that this is the most accurate information
possible. But honestly, it's challenging to

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know if everything is one hundred percent
definitely absolutely right, especially when people who

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call themselves experts on Anna's life have
actually gotten things really, really wrong.

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Obviously I didn't use those people as
sources, but still grant me some grace,

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please, and to help, I'm
going to call out information that is

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heavily disputed as it comes up.
Mostly it's about Anna's childhood, which was

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not as well documented as her adulthood. After that, things become pretty clear.

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So here's the first moment of some
of that heavily disputed information, and

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that is Anna Lou Welty's name at
the time she was born. Over the

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course of her life, Anna Lou
would proceed to go by at least six

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names, but due to her many
name changes, quite frankly, people have

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lost track of Anna's original name.
Many have reported that the name on her

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birth certificate was Judias Anna Lou Welty. But I don't think that's right.

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And that's because Pensacola News Journal reporter
Dave Goodwin wrote the following on May thirteenth

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of nineteen eighty four. Anna Lou
Welty born on April fourth, nineteen forty

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three, in the flat prairie week
country of Quana, Texas, near the

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Oklahoma border, according to her birth
certificate in the Hardeman County Courthouse. So

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yeah, I'm going with Dave here
and we'll talk about how Anna became Jedias

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in just a moment. So here
we have Anna, daughter of Jesse and

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Mary Lou. Growing up, Anna
had three brothers and since her parents were

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married in nineteen twenty eight and she
wasn't born until nineteen forty three. I

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imagine she was one of the youngest
of the four wealthy children. Anna's relatives

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remembered that as a young girl,
she was smart and sweet. According to

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the San Angelo Weekly Standard newspaper,
on February twentieth of nineteen forty seven,

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Anna's mother, thirty four year old
Mary Lou Welty, died in San Angelo,

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Texas. We're not sure how Mary
Lou died, but it seemed unexpected.

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Thirty four is so young. According
to her obituary, Mary Lou had

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been receiving medical care at a sanatorium
prior to her death, so I imagine

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her death was a shock to her
family and especially to three year old Anna.

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Following the death of her mother,
Anna's family members recalled that she had

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a tough childhood. According to relatives
who spoke with the Pensacola News Journal,

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Anna's father, Jesse, was often
absent. He would get his paycheck,

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leave until it was spent, and
return when he needed more money. At

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some point, Anna's father, Jesse
remarried, this time to a woman named

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Jean, and they lived in Roswell, New Mexico, with Jean's two sons

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from a previous marriage, and around
nineteen fifty seven, a teenaged Anna lived

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with her dad's stepmother and stepbrothers.
There are allegations that Anna's father's stepmother and

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stepbrothers treated her horribly. Some people
believed that Anna was forced to serve them

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like a slave, but I couldn't
verify that information through enough primary sources,

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court documents, or newspaper articles.
Rumor has it that Anna retaliated against his

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child abuse by attacking her stepmother and
her stepbrothers, and in response to that,

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Anna was forced to attend a juvenile's
attention center in Albuquerque, and this

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part is true. She did go
to a juvenile detention center named Foothills High

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School. Her relatives remembered that she
went there for about a year before running

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away when she was about fifteen years
old. It's unclear if Anna ever graduated

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high school, but some accounts suggest
that she did. On March thirtieth of

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nineteen sixty one, seventeen year old
Anna gave birth to her first son,

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Arthur Michael Schultz and Roswell, New
Mexico. Anna would call her newborn son

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Michael after his father, Michael Schultz. At this point, Anna lou Weiltie

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began going by a new name,
Anne Scholtz, but this name change appears

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to be informal, not legal,
since she and Michael Schultz never actually married,

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But Anne would not be without a
husband for long because a year later,

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on January twenty first, nineteen sixty
two, eighteen year old Anne Schultz

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would marry twenty eight year old James
Goodyear. James Edgar Goodyear was born on

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December seventh, nineteen thirty three,
to his parents, John and Mabel in

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Modina, Pennsylvania. James had one
brother and two sisters, and on July

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twenty first, nineteen fifty two,
he joined the Air Force. He was

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nineteen years old, and he would
serve in the military for nearly twenty years.

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In nineteen sixty two, when he
and Anne were married, it's likely

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that James was stationed at a US
Air Force base near Roswell, New Mexico.

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Somehow he met Anne, who was
working as a nurse at the Eastern

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New Mexico Medical Center, and after
their marriage, Anne and James changed Anne's

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one year old son's name from Arthur
Michael Schultz to Michael Arthur Goodyear. Little

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Mike took his new stepfather's last name, and oddly enough, on Anna and

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James's marriage certificate, Anne would write
down false information. First, she signed

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her name as Anne Schultz when her
legal name was Anna lou Welty. Then

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she also wrote that she was from
Newburgh, England, not Quana, Texas.

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And Anne also changed her birth year, not to make herself younger like

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you might expect, but to make
herself older. Anne wrote down on her

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marriage certificate that she was born in
nineteen thirty eight. That would have made

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her twenty four years old at the
time of her marriage to James, when

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she was really eighteen. When newlywed's
Anne and James visited her family, the

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family was surprised about the fact that
Anne was lying about her age. Her

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aunt Willie remembered that Anne became very
angry when they approached her about this age

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discrepancy. Willie also recalled that Anne
claimed to be working as an airline stewardess,

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but according to Willie, Anne was
likely lying. She'd probably never been

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an airline stewardess, and after Anne
married James she changed her name yet again.

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That's of course pretty expected, she'd
be Anne Goodyear now right wrong?

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00:16:48.840 --> 00:16:53.720
Anne Schultz became Judias Goodyear. She
went primarily by Judy, spelled either jud

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00:16:55.000 --> 00:17:00.559
Y or jud I. According to
the Pensacola News Journal, Judy she probably

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00:17:00.600 --> 00:17:04.240
picked Judias as her name because her
new husband, James's Catholic christening name was

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00:17:04.359 --> 00:17:10.559
Judias. Okay, you might be
tempted to think that Judy was a big

207
00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:14.799
jokester, that she was just putting
down weird details on her marriage certificate,

208
00:17:14.839 --> 00:17:18.519
because hey, why not. It's
an easy laugh to say your age is

209
00:17:18.559 --> 00:17:22.319
wrong or that you're from the wrong
location. And as far as the airline

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00:17:22.319 --> 00:17:26.079
stewardess bit, who doesn't stretch the
truth to their family from time to time?

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00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:30.200
Right, And look, you can
change your name to whatever you want.

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00:17:30.519 --> 00:17:34.079
It's a free country. But you're
going to start to notice a pattern

213
00:17:34.160 --> 00:17:40.000
here, and that pattern is that
Anna Welty or Anne Schultz or Judias Goodyear

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00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:45.880
was a pathological liar. For example, as an adult, Judy would swear

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00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:48.960
up and down to everyone who would
listen that she was a full blooded Native

216
00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:52.680
American from the Apache tribe. She
claimed that she was a direct descendant of

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00:17:52.720 --> 00:18:00.559
Geronimo, but Judy's birth certificate only
lists her race as American and when Pencilcla

218
00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:04.880
news journal reporters checked, none of
the Indigenous people they asked recognized Wealthy as

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00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:11.960
a Native American name. Judy lied
so much and so often that it's a

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00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:15.839
part of why it's challenging to verify
her personal information. It's a little weird

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00:18:15.880 --> 00:18:19.599
to think that to this day Judy's
lies have an impact. They were just

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00:18:19.720 --> 00:18:26.599
that pervasive. Right after Judy and
James were married in January of nineteen sixty

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00:18:26.599 --> 00:18:30.359
two, the newlyweds and one year
old Mike moved across the country for James's

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00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:34.279
job. He was a technical sergeant
and had been stationed at the McCoy Air

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00:18:34.319 --> 00:18:38.920
Force Base. So the little family
of three went from Roswell, New Mexico,

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00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:42.359
to Orlando, Florida, and they
were met with a warm welcome.

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00:18:44.039 --> 00:18:48.000
The local newspapers reported that to welcome
the young Goodyear family to the base,

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00:18:48.440 --> 00:18:52.279
the Air Force wives held a public
coffee event. Judy became pretty involved in

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00:18:52.319 --> 00:18:56.000
the air Force base two. In
July of nineteen sixty four, she was

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00:18:56.039 --> 00:19:02.119
the co chairman for the Family Services
at the Atkoy Air Force Base. She

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00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:07.319
even helped throw coffee parties to welcome
incoming military families. Just like they had

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00:19:07.359 --> 00:19:11.079
for her family when they first arrived. Judy also began running the Conway Acres

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00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:17.920
Childcare Center. On January sixteenth,
nineteen sixty six, Judy and James had

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00:19:17.960 --> 00:19:22.200
their first son together. His name
was James Allen Goodyear. The very next

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00:19:22.279 --> 00:19:26.759
year, on March ninth, nineteen
sixty seven, they had a little girl.

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00:19:26.279 --> 00:19:33.240
Her name was Kimberly and Goodyear.
In nineteen seventy, James was deployed

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00:19:33.279 --> 00:19:37.160
to South Vietnam to serve in the
Vietnam War, and one year later he

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00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:41.599
returned to his wife and three children
in Florida. When James first came home

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00:19:41.640 --> 00:19:45.480
from Miss Toura duty, he seemed
fit as a fiddle. It was probably

240
00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:49.680
a miracle considering how many US soldiers
who went to Vietnam weren't coming back at

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00:19:49.720 --> 00:19:56.240
all. But shortly after arriving in
Orlando, James became sick, and then

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00:19:56.319 --> 00:20:00.720
he kept getting sicker and sicker.
Over the course of two weeks, James

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00:20:00.759 --> 00:20:07.039
experienced increasingly worse nausea, vomiting,
and diarrhea. Around that same time,

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00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:11.079
in the fall of nineteen seventy one, James and Judy took in a foster

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00:20:11.200 --> 00:20:18.440
child. Her name was Deborah Simms. According to court documents, Deborah recalled

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00:20:18.440 --> 00:20:22.240
that there was no apparent explanation for
James's illness, but it was quite obviously

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00:20:22.359 --> 00:20:29.000
very serious. Besides the vomiting,
nausea, and diarrhea, James was experiencing

248
00:20:29.119 --> 00:20:33.319
vivid hallucinations. Once, Deborah witnessed
James seeing a rabbit on his bed,

249
00:20:33.960 --> 00:20:38.240
and she remembered that James would also
pick it as bed linens. In Deborah's

250
00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:42.640
court testimony, she explained that Judy
was hesitant to take James to the hospital.

251
00:20:44.440 --> 00:20:48.720
After all, James was thirty seven
years old. Surely Judy must have

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00:20:48.759 --> 00:20:52.920
thought this will pass. But it
didn't, and on September thirteenth, nineteen

253
00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:57.599
seventy one, James was hospitalized at
the United States Naval Hospital in Orlando.

254
00:20:59.599 --> 00:21:04.240
Three days days later, on September
sixteenth, James Edgar Goodyear died. At

255
00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:07.359
the time, James was under the
care of doctor R. C. Auchenbach,

256
00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:12.680
and doctor Auchenbach was baffled at James's
death. He could find no explanation

257
00:21:12.759 --> 00:21:18.039
for the sickness. The symptoms mething. He had tried to stabilize James's condition,

258
00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:23.079
but he had failed. I'm going
to pause now to hear a word

259
00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:33.000
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After all, this isn't just any true

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crime podcast, It's our true crime
podcast. Doctor Auckenbach dubbed James's cause of

285
00:23:45.279 --> 00:23:52.000
death cardiovascular collapse and renal failure.
Other reports from the Pensacola News Journal explained

286
00:23:52.039 --> 00:23:59.279
that James also had bilateral pneumonia with
effusion and hypoxia, and that only twenty

287
00:23:59.279 --> 00:24:03.559
four hours before where he had died
James had suffered from respiratory arrest. Basically,

288
00:24:04.079 --> 00:24:08.680
his body had failed him, and
no one knew why. The Goodyears

289
00:24:08.680 --> 00:24:12.599
mourned for James. He was a
great father and a devoted military man.

290
00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:18.519
In his obituary, it stated that
James was survived by his beloved wife,

291
00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:22.799
Judy A. Goodyear, sons Michael
Arthur and James Allen Goodyear, and daughter,

292
00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:29.000
Miss Kimberly Ann Goodyear. His funeral
service was held on Monday, September

293
00:24:29.039 --> 00:24:33.079
twentieth, nineteen seventy one, at
the Fairchild Chapel. He was buried in

294
00:24:33.119 --> 00:24:40.880
the Chapel Hill Cemetery in Orlando Now. Judy Goodyear was a single mother of

295
00:24:40.920 --> 00:24:45.119
three children, but she did what
mothers do. She made it work and

296
00:24:45.200 --> 00:24:48.759
it didn't hurt that she was the
beneficiary of several James's life insurance policies and

297
00:24:48.920 --> 00:24:55.759
veterans' benefits. That's what these policies
are therefore right to help people when it

298
00:24:55.799 --> 00:25:00.200
seems like their world is falling apart. All in all, Judy received about

299
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:04.680
thirty three thousand in insurance policy money
following James's death. Today that would be

300
00:25:04.720 --> 00:25:11.640
about two hundred and forty eight thousand. She also received dependency compensation from the

301
00:25:11.720 --> 00:25:17.200
Veterans Administration that equaled about sixty two
thousand, which is about four hundred and

302
00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:22.599
sixty seven thousand in today's money.
But tragedy struck the Goodyear household again.

303
00:25:22.680 --> 00:25:26.240
On January twenty first, nineteen seventy
two, about a year after James's death,

304
00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:32.680
an unknown person poured kerosene throughout Judy's
family home and lit it on fire.

305
00:25:33.359 --> 00:25:37.599
The house was destroyed and the local
authorities ruled the fire as arson.

306
00:25:38.440 --> 00:25:44.359
Initially, someone was charged for starting
the fire, but those charges were dropped

307
00:25:44.559 --> 00:25:48.240
due to a lack of evidence.
Following the fire, Judy collected about ninety

308
00:25:48.279 --> 00:25:53.960
six thousand in home insurance money that's
about seven hundred and two thousand today.

309
00:25:55.960 --> 00:26:00.200
Then Judy and her three children moved
from Orlando to a very nice home in

310
00:26:00.279 --> 00:26:04.519
the Pencacle of Florida area. This
wouldn't be the only house fire that Judy's

311
00:26:04.519 --> 00:26:10.680
family would experience. It was really
weird like house fires and Judy somehow went

312
00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:15.000
hand in hand. On July seventeenth, nineteen seventy six, Judy's home would

313
00:26:15.039 --> 00:26:19.680
catch fire again. This time,
the fire was not determined to be arson.

314
00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:26.240
Officials stated that it started on a
closet containing clothes and paper, and

315
00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:32.359
again. On April first of nineteen
seventy seven, the Pensacola News Journal reported

316
00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:36.680
that Judy's house had caught fire.
Apparently, the fire started at three forty

317
00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:41.160
six am and was due to defective
wiring connected into the air conditioning unit.

318
00:26:42.480 --> 00:26:47.720
By the time Judy and her three
children noticed the fire, it had overwhelmed

319
00:26:47.759 --> 00:26:52.519
their stairwell. Thirty three year old
Judy, sixteen year old Mike, eleven

320
00:26:52.559 --> 00:26:56.559
year old James Junior, and ten
year old Kimberly were forced to jump from

321
00:26:56.559 --> 00:27:02.519
their second floor windows to escape the
raging flames. In a stroke of great

322
00:27:02.599 --> 00:27:06.160
luck, all four of them made
the eighteen foot leap without any injuries,

323
00:27:06.480 --> 00:27:11.440
despite there being no plants or bushes
to break their fall. Now we don't

324
00:27:11.480 --> 00:27:17.319
know how much insurance money Judy received
from these house fires, but I'd bet

325
00:27:17.359 --> 00:27:21.880
my own house that she received a
good amount. In the mid nineteen seventies,

326
00:27:21.960 --> 00:27:25.960
amenst term many house fires, Judy
also began dating a new man.

327
00:27:26.519 --> 00:27:30.200
This was Bobby Joe Morris. Bobby
was born on December fourteenth, nineteen forty

328
00:27:30.200 --> 00:27:34.319
one, to parents Austin and Lodell. Bobby was from Bruton, Alabama,

329
00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:40.559
but in his adult years, he
made his way about sixty miles south to

330
00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:45.039
Pensacola, Florida. There he met
Judy and they began dating. Around this

331
00:27:45.119 --> 00:27:48.920
time, Judy was still working in
the medical field like she had been in

332
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:53.440
New Mexico when she met James.
From nineteen seventy five to seventy six,

333
00:27:53.880 --> 00:27:59.720
Judy worked at the University Hospital in
Pensacola, and from seventy six to seventy

334
00:27:59.720 --> 00:28:03.279
seven and she worked at the Escambia
County Nursing Home, which was also located

335
00:28:03.319 --> 00:28:08.680
in Pensacola. If you're wondering how
Judy had nabbed at least three positions in

336
00:28:08.720 --> 00:28:15.000
the medical field without any actual education
in medicine, you're asking the right questions.

337
00:28:15.759 --> 00:28:19.119
Based on the available records, it's
unclear if Judy even graduated from high

338
00:28:19.160 --> 00:28:25.400
school. During courtroom testimony, it
was revealed that Judy often lied about her

339
00:28:25.400 --> 00:28:30.799
training and experience on job applications.
Sometimes she told people that she had one

340
00:28:30.839 --> 00:28:37.039
doctorate in nursing and another one in
anatomy. Other times she told people that

341
00:28:37.079 --> 00:28:41.880
her two doctorates were in biological research
and psychology. She also told her friends

342
00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:45.680
and family that she was earning her
MD. But that was a lie.

343
00:28:47.160 --> 00:28:52.319
It was all lies from what we
know of Judy's previous experience about lying on

344
00:28:52.359 --> 00:28:59.359
official forms, her penchant for lying
about her education tracks. Plus, what

345
00:28:59.440 --> 00:29:03.359
were people in the nineteen seventy is
going to do google her? And even

346
00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:08.200
if they could, what name would
they have searched? Anna lou Welty Judias

347
00:29:08.279 --> 00:29:12.440
Goodyear. And now that Judy was
in a relationship with Bobby Morris, she

348
00:29:12.480 --> 00:29:17.720
had changed her name yet again,
this time to Judy Morris. Eventually,

349
00:29:17.839 --> 00:29:22.240
Judy and Bobby became common law married, so this name change makes more sense

350
00:29:22.279 --> 00:29:26.519
than some of her others. In
nineteen seventy seven, Bobby was offered an

351
00:29:26.559 --> 00:29:30.759
exciting new job. He was going
to be a utilities director in Trinidad,

352
00:29:30.799 --> 00:29:36.279
Colorado. As a result of this
job, Bobby and Judy and the kids

353
00:29:36.359 --> 00:29:41.240
moved to Colorado. As we discussed, Judy's house had recently burned down in

354
00:29:41.279 --> 00:29:45.839
April of seventy seven. How serendipitous
this had all worked out, so Bobby,

355
00:29:45.920 --> 00:29:49.000
Judy, and her children lived in
Trinidad for a couple of years.

356
00:29:49.640 --> 00:29:56.079
While there, Judy would earn her
only verifiable degree, a licensed Practical Nursing

357
00:29:56.119 --> 00:30:00.920
degree from the Trinidad State Junior College. When Judy and Bobby first moved to

358
00:30:00.920 --> 00:30:06.200
Colorado together, Judy began taking out
death and life insurance policies in Bobby's name.

359
00:30:07.039 --> 00:30:10.680
For at least one of these policies, Bobby did not sign the paperwork,

360
00:30:10.920 --> 00:30:15.240
but Judy probably did. According to
court testimony, Judy claimed that Bobby

361
00:30:15.319 --> 00:30:21.039
was far too busy to sign the
policy in person himself. Then Judy took

362
00:30:21.079 --> 00:30:25.400
the policy under the guise of delivering
it to Bobby, but according to Bobby's

363
00:30:25.440 --> 00:30:29.640
own mother, Judy just signed the
policy herself and returned it to the insurance

364
00:30:29.680 --> 00:30:33.200
company. However, it was proven
in court that Bobby did know about some

365
00:30:33.279 --> 00:30:37.920
of these policies. His own mother
said he spoke to her about it.

366
00:30:38.160 --> 00:30:42.440
Judy had taken out one life insurance
policy for Bobby that was worth thirty thousand

367
00:30:42.920 --> 00:30:48.039
that's about one hundred and fifty thousand
today, and Bobby told his mother that

368
00:30:48.079 --> 00:30:52.960
he wished like hell that Judy had
not done that. On January twenty eighth,

369
00:30:52.079 --> 00:30:56.960
nineteen seventy eight, thirty six year
old Bobby Joe Morris died at the

370
00:30:56.960 --> 00:31:02.279
San Rafael Hospital in Trinidai, Colorado. His cause of death was said to

371
00:31:02.279 --> 00:31:06.920
be cardiac arrest a heart attack.
He was buried in the Green Acre's Memorial

372
00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:11.920
Park of brute And, Alabama.
Judy pushed really hard for Bobby to be

373
00:31:11.960 --> 00:31:17.200
cremated, but Bobby's mother, Lodell, wasn't having it. She made sure

374
00:31:17.279 --> 00:31:21.039
her son was buried right where he
should be, in his hometown. When

375
00:31:21.039 --> 00:31:23.759
Lodell passed in two thousand and four, she was buried next to her son.

376
00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:30.319
Following Bobby's death, Judy received approximately
twenty three thousand in insurance money.

377
00:31:30.599 --> 00:31:36.160
That's about one hundred and seventy three
thousand in today's money. She used some

378
00:31:36.440 --> 00:31:38.920
or all of it to buy a
house. By this point, Judy was

379
00:31:38.960 --> 00:31:45.160
so unexplainably rich that her friends started
to notice. They could just tell she

380
00:31:45.240 --> 00:31:51.119
had such nice things. According to
Debbie Simms's court testimony, Judy and James's

381
00:31:51.200 --> 00:31:56.119
foster child, Judy had always aspired
to the high life. Debbie remembered that

382
00:31:56.200 --> 00:32:00.720
Judy would spend hours sewing sequins on
her evening gowns, even she had nowhere

383
00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:05.279
to wear them. One year after
Bobby's death, it was around June of

384
00:32:05.319 --> 00:32:08.000
seventy nine. This is when Judy's
first son, eighteen year old Mike,

385
00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:13.559
joined the Army, and for all
intents and purposes, that appeared to be

386
00:32:13.599 --> 00:32:17.000
going pretty well. Mike had been
stationed at Fort Leonard Wood in Montana during

387
00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:22.759
October of seventy nine. He had
had some exposure to chlorine gas, but

388
00:32:22.839 --> 00:32:27.920
nothing too serious, and on October
twenty sixth of nineteen seventy nine, Mike

389
00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:31.640
returned to his mother's home while on
leave. He was just stopping by for

390
00:32:31.680 --> 00:32:37.759
a few days. His next assignment
was in Georgia, but this was when

391
00:32:37.799 --> 00:32:42.240
things started to go downhill. After
one day at Judy's house, Mike became

392
00:32:42.279 --> 00:32:46.720
sick. He experienced vomiting, diarrhea
and extreme dizziness. Soon after, Mike

393
00:32:46.799 --> 00:32:51.640
battled a horrific rash and began to
go numb in his fingers and toes,

394
00:32:52.640 --> 00:32:55.680
and as you recall from the beginning
of this episode, Mike was paralyzed in

395
00:32:55.759 --> 00:33:00.119
his lower extremities. By that December, he was charged from the Army as

396
00:33:00.160 --> 00:33:06.359
a private and sent to the Walter
Reed Hospital for further treatment. Mike and

397
00:33:06.440 --> 00:33:09.640
Judy always had a different mothers own
relationship. In court, it would be

398
00:33:09.680 --> 00:33:15.799
explained that Mike had some learning disabilities. It's likely they affected his speech and

399
00:33:15.880 --> 00:33:21.400
behavior. Because of that, Judy
frequently shipped Mike off to different medical facilities

400
00:33:21.400 --> 00:33:25.640
and institutions. He had been a
patient at the Florida State Hospital for the

401
00:33:25.680 --> 00:33:30.279
mentally ill, he had gone to
a school in Hyalia, Florida for the

402
00:33:30.319 --> 00:33:35.000
emotionally disturbed, and he had been
enrolled in a camp for troubled youths in

403
00:33:35.079 --> 00:33:39.759
Santa Rosa County. According to court
testimony, Mike spent most of his childhood

404
00:33:39.799 --> 00:33:45.880
from ages eight to sixteen in special
homes for the quote mentally disturbed. He

405
00:33:45.920 --> 00:33:50.160
only really saw Judy, James Junior, and Kimberly around Christmas time, and

406
00:33:50.240 --> 00:33:53.400
even then. Judy's friend testified in
court that Judy had Mike away when guests

407
00:33:53.400 --> 00:34:00.720
were over. This friend, Constance
Lang, explained that there was almost no

408
00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:05.039
interaction between Mike and Judy. She
was really good with Kim and James Junior,

409
00:34:05.319 --> 00:34:08.239
but not with Mike. Deborah Simms, the young woman who had lived

410
00:34:08.239 --> 00:34:13.840
with Judy back when James was alive, testified that Judy did not purchase toys

411
00:34:13.920 --> 00:34:16.400
for Mike when he was a child, and that Judy often sold clothing for

412
00:34:16.480 --> 00:34:22.440
James Junior and Kimberly but not Mike. And when seventeen year old Mike lived

413
00:34:22.440 --> 00:34:25.679
with Judy and Bobby in Trinidad,
relatives reported that Michael was made to sleep

414
00:34:25.679 --> 00:34:30.679
in the basement. Meanwhile, his
little brother, James Junior, and sister

415
00:34:30.800 --> 00:34:36.639
Kimberly shared a bedroom together. According
to Bobby's mother's testimony, Judy once said,

416
00:34:36.639 --> 00:34:38.880
in reference to Mike, no one
little bastard is going to ruin the

417
00:34:38.920 --> 00:34:45.639
lives of four others. Perhaps Judy
resented Mike because he was born out of

418
00:34:45.639 --> 00:34:50.239
wedlock. Perhaps she struggled with her
own prejudices as a parent of a child

419
00:34:50.360 --> 00:34:53.920
with special needs. Judy would deny
all of this, of course, she

420
00:34:54.039 --> 00:34:59.480
claimed she loved Michael dearly, that
this wasn't her shipping Mike off, but

421
00:34:59.519 --> 00:35:04.639
getting him the help he needed.
But it seemed like everyone noticed that Judy

422
00:35:04.679 --> 00:35:08.639
treated Mike very poorly. Even Mike's
childhood friends saw it. Air Force sergeant

423
00:35:08.719 --> 00:35:12.559
Kenneth Barnes, who had lived on
the same street as Mike growing up,

424
00:35:13.079 --> 00:35:16.679
testified that she called him stupid,
She called him an idiot, she called

425
00:35:16.760 --> 00:35:22.760
him dumb. According to Kenneth,
Mike loved his mother. Kenneth said Mike

426
00:35:22.840 --> 00:35:25.599
tried Mike's heart was in it,
but from what I've seen, the feedback

427
00:35:25.639 --> 00:35:30.719
from her was not there. On
May thirteenth, nineteen eighty, nineteen year

428
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:35.760
old Mike was supposed to be continuing
his recovery at the Jay Hospital in Jay,

429
00:35:35.800 --> 00:35:39.280
Florida, but to celebrate Mike's health, Judy wanted to take a canoeing

430
00:35:39.280 --> 00:35:44.679
trip with her kids. She retrieved
Mike from the Jay Hospital, which was

431
00:35:44.719 --> 00:35:47.400
about an hour north from the Pensacola
Gulf Breeze area, and she let two

432
00:35:47.480 --> 00:35:52.480
youngest kids, fourteen year old James
Junior and thirteen year old Kimberly, skip

433
00:35:52.559 --> 00:35:57.480
school that Tuesday, and now the
family of four headed to the East River

434
00:35:57.519 --> 00:36:00.840
for a quick canoe trip. They
set up a long chair in the middle

435
00:36:00.840 --> 00:36:05.239
of their canoe and strapped Mike in
with a ski built and then Mike,

436
00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:08.320
James Junior, and Judy went off
on their canoe adventure. Kim, for

437
00:36:08.400 --> 00:36:13.480
unknown reasons except that she might not
have fit into the canoe, remained at

438
00:36:13.480 --> 00:36:17.480
the boat landing. When Judy and
James Junior returned around three o'clock in the

439
00:36:17.519 --> 00:36:22.679
afternoon, Mike was not with them. He had drowned. Everyone was shocked.

440
00:36:23.159 --> 00:36:28.679
How could this have happened. Judy
explained to many that Michael's fishing line

441
00:36:28.679 --> 00:36:31.760
had gotten caught in a tree that
made the treelimb break loose and land in

442
00:36:31.800 --> 00:36:36.920
the canoe. Then there was the
snake on the tree branch. At this

443
00:36:37.039 --> 00:36:40.159
point everyone was freaking out. Judy
and James Junior moved to one side of

444
00:36:40.159 --> 00:36:45.719
the canoe and it overturned. James
Junior was knocked unconscious and Mike became submerged

445
00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:51.360
in the water. Judy was able
to save James Junior, but not Mike.

446
00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:57.079
She couldn't. James Junior's unconscious body
was already so much for Judy to

447
00:36:57.119 --> 00:37:01.480
swim to the shoreline. There simply
wasn't time to save Mike. A passing

448
00:37:01.519 --> 00:37:07.320
fisherman found Judy and James Junior standing
in the water with their upside down canoe

449
00:37:07.400 --> 00:37:12.039
and a floating ice chest. Judy
explained the tree branch and snake story to

450
00:37:12.079 --> 00:37:15.519
the fisherman, and he asked Judy
if they should look for Mike, who

451
00:37:15.559 --> 00:37:19.760
was still underwater, but Judy said
no, she wanted to go back to

452
00:37:19.800 --> 00:37:23.400
the boat landing where Kimberly was waiting. Judy expressed an interest in getting medical

453
00:37:23.440 --> 00:37:28.679
attention for James Junior, but she
didn't say hardly anything at all about Mike

454
00:37:29.440 --> 00:37:32.119
before she called the authorities. She
took the time to sit down and pop

455
00:37:32.159 --> 00:37:37.159
open a beer. When the authorities
arrived, Judy didn't tell the same tree

456
00:37:37.159 --> 00:37:40.679
branch and snake version of events.
Now, she said she had hit a

457
00:37:40.679 --> 00:37:45.639
tree stump that had been hidden under
the waterline. Later, Judy would clarify

458
00:37:45.840 --> 00:37:50.320
that all of it was true.
The tree branch fell, the snake was

459
00:37:50.400 --> 00:37:54.119
there, and they had had a
submerged tree stump. Judy also told the

460
00:37:54.119 --> 00:37:59.119
sheriff's deputies that Mike was wearing a
life jacket, but when Mike's body was

461
00:37:59.159 --> 00:38:02.400
found at seven the next day,
he wasn't wearing a life vest, only

462
00:38:02.440 --> 00:38:07.320
his regular clothes and twelve pounds of
leg braces which had somehow been locked in

463
00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:13.719
an upright position. Afterward, James
Junior went to the West Florida Hospital for

464
00:38:13.760 --> 00:38:17.599
treatment. According to court documents,
when the hospital workers asked James Junior if

465
00:38:17.599 --> 00:38:22.159
he had fallen unconscious during the whole
debacle, he said no, he hadn't

466
00:38:22.199 --> 00:38:29.000
been unconscious at any point, contrary
to Judy's version of events. The doctors

467
00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:32.239
determined that James Junior was fine.
And he was released from the hospital shortly

468
00:38:32.280 --> 00:38:38.280
after. Judy received a huge amount
of insurance from Mike's death. She bought

469
00:38:38.280 --> 00:38:43.840
a boat, a corvette, brand
new furniture, and paid for extremely lavish

470
00:38:43.880 --> 00:38:49.159
trips for her family. She also
purchased certificates of deposits or CDs for James

471
00:38:49.280 --> 00:38:52.960
Junior and Kimberly, and she loaned
huge amounts of cash to her friends.

472
00:38:53.719 --> 00:39:00.400
Meanwhile, Michael Arthur Goodyear was buried
in the Barancas National Cemetery in pennsyl Kola.

473
00:39:00.239 --> 00:39:07.000
He was remembered as a kind young
man and a military veteran. I'm

474
00:39:07.039 --> 00:39:15.119
going to pause now for a short
commercial break. When the Pensacola News Journal

475
00:39:15.199 --> 00:39:20.360
reported Michael's death, Judy told them
that she was a clinical physician at an

476
00:39:20.400 --> 00:39:25.159
alcoholic rehabilitation center in Florida. It
was known as the Okaloosa Guidance Clinic and

477
00:39:25.239 --> 00:39:30.440
was located in Fort Walton Beach.
But Judy, we already know, was

478
00:39:30.480 --> 00:39:36.679
an incredibly unreliable resource. She probably
wasn't a physician though she did work at

479
00:39:36.719 --> 00:39:39.440
this clinic. Or if Judy was
a physician there, it was because she

480
00:39:39.480 --> 00:39:44.840
had lied about her education and been
given a job she was not qualified for

481
00:39:45.559 --> 00:39:50.400
regardless, the newspaper published her name
as doctor Judy, but not doctor Judy

482
00:39:50.440 --> 00:39:55.760
Goodyear. Now she was going by
doctor Judy Buenano. It suspected that Judy

483
00:39:55.840 --> 00:40:00.360
chose this new last name Bueno Juano, because it's a Spanish translation of good

484
00:40:00.440 --> 00:40:05.239
year, and when I say loose, I mean so loose. It's nearly

485
00:40:05.280 --> 00:40:08.199
incorrect. I don't speak Spanish,
so I'm not going to try to explain

486
00:40:08.239 --> 00:40:15.039
how Buenojuano spelled b u e n
o a n o with no tilda or

487
00:40:15.079 --> 00:40:19.760
accent mark is not the same thing
as good year. But if you do

488
00:40:19.840 --> 00:40:22.639
speak Spanish, feel free to explain
the linguistics of this to us. In

489
00:40:22.679 --> 00:40:27.320
the Facebook group, the question is
if you were to say good year in

490
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:31.559
Spanish, what would it be.
A relative of Judy said Judy changed her

491
00:40:31.639 --> 00:40:36.920
name to Buenojuano because she thought it
was a quote Indian name, and according

492
00:40:36.960 --> 00:40:39.880
to Judy's conversation with this relative,
Judy felt that since she was working with

493
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:45.400
quote Indians and an alcoholic rehabilitation center, she wanted to fit in and she

494
00:40:45.440 --> 00:40:49.800
didn't want them to be able to
find her in her own home. Just

495
00:40:49.920 --> 00:40:52.800
to be clear, Judy was white, not Hispanic, and certainly not Native

496
00:40:52.840 --> 00:40:57.880
American or indigenous, though, like
I mentioned earlier in this episode, she

497
00:40:57.920 --> 00:41:01.559
would make false claims that she was
of the Patchi tribe, and to further

498
00:41:01.639 --> 00:41:06.559
prove that Judy just had no idea
what was Spanish, what was English,

499
00:41:06.760 --> 00:41:10.239
or what was an actual last name
for an indigenous person would be Judy misspelled

500
00:41:10.280 --> 00:41:15.719
Buena Wano. When she first changed
her name, she spelled it b u

501
00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.920
n e a n o. Later
she would fix the spelling a little bit

502
00:41:20.400 --> 00:41:24.119
and it would become the Bueno Wuano
she is reported today. But like I

503
00:41:24.239 --> 00:41:30.760
said, with no tilda over the
inn. Judy had also changed her children's

504
00:41:30.800 --> 00:41:35.239
last names from Goodyear to good Year
Buena Wano. On Mike's gravestone, it

505
00:41:35.320 --> 00:41:38.840
even says Michael Bueno Wuano good Year. I'm not sure why the order has

506
00:41:38.840 --> 00:41:45.559
switched though, or where Arthur Michael's
middle name went. Throughout the bulk of

507
00:41:45.639 --> 00:41:49.400
James Junior. In Kimberly's lives,
they would be referred to in the newspaper

508
00:41:49.440 --> 00:41:54.880
by both Goodyear and Bueno Wano interchangeably. Sometime around nineteen eighty one, Judy

509
00:41:54.920 --> 00:42:00.440
started dating a new guy named John
Wesley Gentry the second. John was born

510
00:42:00.480 --> 00:42:05.079
on June sixteenth to parents Hubert and
Lucille in Pensacola. John was part of

511
00:42:05.119 --> 00:42:09.440
a very big, very family oriented
family. He was named after his grandfather,

512
00:42:09.519 --> 00:42:14.119
who was also from Pensacola, and
he was one of six kids,

513
00:42:14.519 --> 00:42:19.440
having one sister and five brothers.
On September third, nineteen sixty four,

514
00:42:19.840 --> 00:42:22.320
eighteen year old John had joined the
military, just like his own father.

515
00:42:23.760 --> 00:42:28.320
He would serve in the Marine Corps. John completed at least one tour of

516
00:42:28.400 --> 00:42:31.599
duty in Vietnam. While there,
he stepped on a landman and survived.

517
00:42:32.119 --> 00:42:37.000
For his bravery, John received a
purple heart. When Judy and John met,

518
00:42:37.079 --> 00:42:40.880
he was the co operator of the
wallpaper mill outlet at the local Town

519
00:42:40.880 --> 00:42:45.440
and Country Plaza, and at first
Judy told John that she was the supervising

520
00:42:45.519 --> 00:42:51.480
nurse at the West Florida Hospital.
We don't know if that's true, but

521
00:42:51.559 --> 00:42:54.280
around the same time that Judy met
John, she also started a new job.

522
00:42:54.920 --> 00:42:59.599
She was now the owner of a
salon called Fingers and Faces. Maybe

523
00:43:00.119 --> 00:43:04.599
some of her insurance money to buy
the place. The Pensacola News Journal did

524
00:43:04.599 --> 00:43:07.519
a dedicated piece on Fingers and Faces, which is how We know that Judy

525
00:43:07.599 --> 00:43:13.320
had eight employees and that the salon
was fairly successful. It was reported that

526
00:43:13.360 --> 00:43:17.000
they averaged three thousand customers a month, but who knows what was true and

527
00:43:17.079 --> 00:43:22.039
what was more of Judy's laws.
After all, Judy told her salon employees

528
00:43:22.360 --> 00:43:27.880
that she was a scientific pathologist for
local military hospitals. She made it seem

529
00:43:27.920 --> 00:43:32.039
like she was just running a salon
for fun on the side and no time

530
00:43:32.079 --> 00:43:36.519
at all. John and Judy were
living together, then they were engaged to

531
00:43:36.519 --> 00:43:39.400
be married. John had been married
once before, in nineteen sixty nine,

532
00:43:39.440 --> 00:43:44.960
to a woman named Norma Guel and
her adopted son from a previous marriage.

533
00:43:45.559 --> 00:43:49.639
When John asked Judy about her past
relationships and the lineage of her children,

534
00:43:50.280 --> 00:43:53.239
Judy did what Judy did. She
lied. She said her first husband,

535
00:43:53.360 --> 00:43:58.719
James Goodyear, had died in a
plane crash in Vietnam, and she claimed

536
00:43:58.760 --> 00:44:02.079
her second husband, Bob, had
died of alcoholism. It's likely she told

537
00:44:02.159 --> 00:44:07.519
John that Mike died by accidental drowning, but she had told other relatives that

538
00:44:07.599 --> 00:44:12.840
Mike died in a chemical warfare incident. In November of nineteen eighty two,

539
00:44:13.320 --> 00:44:15.920
John came down with a bad cold, so Judy, ever, the loving

540
00:44:15.960 --> 00:44:21.159
wife, started giving John a daily
vitamin pill. But oddly enough, the

541
00:44:21.199 --> 00:44:24.800
pill didn't seem to be helping John, but he still took them. Night

542
00:44:24.840 --> 00:44:29.480
after night, John would get into
bed, Judy would reach into her nightstand,

543
00:44:29.559 --> 00:44:32.079
and John would swallow the pill that
Judy handed him. After a while,

544
00:44:32.639 --> 00:44:37.920
John began experiencing horrible cramping, nausea, and vomity. He checked into

545
00:44:37.960 --> 00:44:43.199
a hospital on December fifteenth of nineteen
eighty two, and wouldn't you know it,

546
00:44:43.360 --> 00:44:45.920
after a few days he was fine. They weren't sure what caused John's

547
00:44:45.960 --> 00:44:51.119
illness. The hospital indicated that John's
hotblood pressure might have had something to do

548
00:44:51.199 --> 00:44:54.599
with it. When John came back
from the hospital, Judy continued giving him

549
00:44:54.599 --> 00:45:00.519
his daily vitamin pill, and John's
sickness returned. Also, John notice that

550
00:45:00.599 --> 00:45:05.440
Judy had grown distant. In his
court testimony, he stated that they quote

551
00:45:05.519 --> 00:45:08.440
didn't argue or anything like that.
We were just not the lovey w couple

552
00:45:08.519 --> 00:45:14.360
we were before. While this was
happening, Judy's employees at Fingers and Faces

553
00:45:14.440 --> 00:45:17.199
asked about John. Why was he
in the hospital, Was he okay?

554
00:45:17.239 --> 00:45:22.679
Would he get better? Judy told
them that John had cancer. And she

555
00:45:22.800 --> 00:45:25.679
wasn't optimistic that John would make it. But as we know, John did

556
00:45:25.719 --> 00:45:30.480
not have cancer. Perhaps he had
stopped taking Judy's vitamin pills, because by

557
00:45:30.480 --> 00:45:36.760
the summer of nineteen eighty two he
had made a full recovery. John and

558
00:45:36.840 --> 00:45:39.599
Judy were set to be married in
late June of nineteen eighty three, and

559
00:45:39.719 --> 00:45:44.599
on June twenty fifth, only a
few days before the wedding, Judy was

560
00:45:44.639 --> 00:45:49.119
hosting a going away party for a
friend. Judy had organized the whole thing.

561
00:45:50.119 --> 00:45:53.000
She invited John, the departing friend, and several others to eat dinner

562
00:45:53.039 --> 00:46:00.280
at the Driftwood Restaurant near Palafax Place
in Pensacola. Afterward, Judy and her

563
00:46:00.320 --> 00:46:01.960
girl friends were going to hit the
town and have a girl's night out.

564
00:46:02.559 --> 00:46:07.360
It was going to be a fun
filled day, and according to John Gentry

565
00:46:07.440 --> 00:46:12.079
himself, that morning he had received
some amazing news. Judy had told him

566
00:46:12.079 --> 00:46:15.440
that she was pregnant. He told
the Pensacola News Journal. I was ecstatic.

567
00:46:15.840 --> 00:46:20.280
I had always hoped for something like
this. This would have been John's

568
00:46:20.320 --> 00:46:24.360
first child. Since Judy and John
would be getting home at different times.

569
00:46:24.400 --> 00:46:29.400
After this dinner party, they had
driven to the restaurant in separate cars.

570
00:46:29.719 --> 00:46:32.599
Judy parked her car in a nearby
hotel parking lot, but she didn't tell

571
00:46:32.679 --> 00:46:37.039
John that. In fact, she
gave John strict instructions not to park in

572
00:46:37.079 --> 00:46:42.760
that specific hotel lot that evening.
After dinner was over, John got into

573
00:46:42.800 --> 00:46:47.480
his vehicle, He turned the car, and a car bomb exploded. Miraculously,

574
00:46:47.559 --> 00:46:51.920
John survived, but the blast was
so strong that it took the roof

575
00:46:51.960 --> 00:46:55.079
off of his car and he suffered
massive injuries. His shoe had been ripped

576
00:46:55.079 --> 00:47:00.119
from his foot. John would spend
over two and a half months in the

577
00:47:00.199 --> 00:47:04.039
hospital. He had to be treated
for severe damage to his stomach, liver,

578
00:47:04.199 --> 00:47:09.360
kidneys, and large and small intestines. He underwent extensive surgery, which

579
00:47:09.400 --> 00:47:15.079
sounds absolutely hellish, though he did
live. As the authorities investigated the car

580
00:47:15.119 --> 00:47:20.079
bomb, they realized that the bomb
was made of two sticks of dynamite and

581
00:47:20.239 --> 00:47:23.760
John's trunk. Someone had wired them
with an electric blasting cap and connected the

582
00:47:23.800 --> 00:47:28.920
contraption to John's left tail light.
When he left for the dinner party,

583
00:47:28.960 --> 00:47:31.760
it had been light out, so
the bomb hadn't detonated, but when John

584
00:47:31.800 --> 00:47:36.440
was trying to go home in the
dark, the bomb blew up. In

585
00:47:36.480 --> 00:47:40.159
case you were wondering, yes,
Judy had started taking out life insurance policies

586
00:47:40.199 --> 00:47:45.599
in John's name three months before he
became ill, back in November and December

587
00:47:45.679 --> 00:47:50.159
of eighty two, according to court
documents, and had John died in the

588
00:47:50.199 --> 00:47:53.639
hospital or the car bombing, Judy
would have received around five hundred and ten

589
00:47:53.679 --> 00:48:00.159
thousand dollars that's a whopping three point
eight million in today's money. And as

590
00:48:00.199 --> 00:48:04.519
the fifty percent beneficiary on John's will, Judy also would have gained half of

591
00:48:04.519 --> 00:48:08.400
his assets. Clearly, she was
getting greedy, and in doing so she

592
00:48:08.480 --> 00:48:13.440
made one fatal mistake. Sure,
she had left behind a string of dead

593
00:48:13.519 --> 00:48:16.800
husbands and one son, and so
far the authorities hadn't really thought much of

594
00:48:16.840 --> 00:48:21.519
it. There are a lot of
people in this world who die, and

595
00:48:21.719 --> 00:48:25.000
especially in the seventies and eighties,
it's totally possible that a bunch of those

596
00:48:25.039 --> 00:48:31.719
deaths just slipped under the radar suspicious
circumstances be damned, but car bombs are

597
00:48:31.719 --> 00:48:36.760
different. They raise red flags in
a way that sick husbands don't. Car

598
00:48:36.800 --> 00:48:40.280
bombs mean that federal officers are going
to be investigating, and as we all

599
00:48:40.320 --> 00:48:45.960
know, federal officers don't mess around. So now the Pensacola Police Department,

600
00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:51.599
the State Fire Marshal's Office, the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Federal

601
00:48:51.639 --> 00:48:54.840
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau,
and the FBI were looking very closely at

602
00:48:54.880 --> 00:49:00.360
John Gentry's car bomb. And these
detectives were talking into John's friends and family.

603
00:49:00.960 --> 00:49:05.599
They wanted to know who could possibly
want to hurt John, and that's

604
00:49:05.599 --> 00:49:08.199
when they caught wind of Judy and
the so called vitamin pills that she had

605
00:49:08.199 --> 00:49:14.000
been giving John. Turns out they
weren't vitamin pills at all. They were

606
00:49:14.039 --> 00:49:19.280
paraformaldehyde, which is a Class three
poison, meaning it's very, very deadly.

607
00:49:20.159 --> 00:49:22.639
From here, all the pieces of
the puzzle came together for the investigators,

608
00:49:23.480 --> 00:49:27.880
and by the end of July nineteen
eighty three, only one month after

609
00:49:27.960 --> 00:49:31.840
John's car exploded, law enforcement suspected
Judy had made two attempts on John's life,

610
00:49:32.119 --> 00:49:37.440
and they knew she was motivated by
a big insurance payout. That same

611
00:49:37.480 --> 00:49:40.280
month, July of nineteen eighty three, John returned home from the Sacred Heart

612
00:49:40.280 --> 00:49:45.360
Hospital. At this point, Judy
gave John another pill. She told him

613
00:49:45.400 --> 00:49:51.920
it was a valume, but it
wasn't it was still para formaldehyde. The

614
00:49:52.000 --> 00:49:54.599
reporting isn't super clear on this,
but I believe that Judy was arrested right

615
00:49:54.679 --> 00:49:59.920
after she tried to poison John with
this pill. It might have been held

616
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.159
the authorities were able to capture her
red handed, but maybe this isn't quite

617
00:50:04.199 --> 00:50:07.119
accurate. When John learned that Judy
had been arrested, he told the Pensacola

618
00:50:07.199 --> 00:50:13.239
News Journal that they were, as
of this moment, still engaged. He

619
00:50:13.360 --> 00:50:16.079
also said he was very shocked to
learn of her arrest, but maybe John

620
00:50:16.159 --> 00:50:22.440
was just saving face if he helped
the police arrest his fiancee regardless. On

621
00:50:22.519 --> 00:50:27.480
July twenty seventh, nineteen eighty three, forty year old Judy Buenojuano was arrested

622
00:50:27.480 --> 00:50:30.119
while working at her salon Fingers and
Faces. She was held on a fifty

623
00:50:30.159 --> 00:50:35.920
thousand dollar bond, and she was
charged with attempted first degree murder. This

624
00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:38.840
was solely for trying to poison thirty
seven year old John. The car bomb

625
00:50:38.920 --> 00:50:45.440
investigation was ongoing, but the authorities
and everyone else suspected that Judy was involved

626
00:50:45.480 --> 00:50:49.920
with that too. Around the same
time that Judy was arrested, the officers

627
00:50:49.920 --> 00:50:54.000
obtained a federal search warrant for her
home. There, the authorities found a

628
00:50:54.000 --> 00:50:59.639
lot of illegal things, including a
quantity of marijuana, drug paraphernalia, and

629
00:50:59.639 --> 00:51:05.199
Adolf shotgun. In the home,
they also found call logs which they believed

630
00:51:05.280 --> 00:51:08.559
contained the cause Judy had made to
buy the explosives used in the car bomb.

631
00:51:09.519 --> 00:51:13.960
A year later, all of this
evidence found in Judy's home was suppressed.

632
00:51:14.440 --> 00:51:17.800
A judge ruled that the search weren't
contained unproven conclusions, which made it

633
00:51:17.840 --> 00:51:23.039
illegal. But now the authorities were
on to Judy. They knew she had

634
00:51:23.039 --> 00:51:27.840
tried to kill John multiple times,
and from there it didn't take much for

635
00:51:27.880 --> 00:51:30.039
them to figure out that John was
not the first man Judy had tried to

636
00:51:30.159 --> 00:51:34.840
kill. In fact, John was
likely one of the only men to escape

637
00:51:34.920 --> 00:51:38.960
Judy's clutches alive. James, Bobby, and Mike had not been so lucky.

638
00:51:40.599 --> 00:51:50.000
I'm going to pause now for a
final commercial break. As soon as

639
00:51:50.079 --> 00:51:53.840
Judy's black widow insurance fraud's scheme was
revealed, her fall from grace was quick.

640
00:51:54.480 --> 00:51:59.920
And that's because law enforcement officials had
judy'smo down. All they needed to

641
00:52:00.079 --> 00:52:04.199
do was find every big death or
life insurance payout Judy had ever received,

642
00:52:04.679 --> 00:52:07.920
and they could safely assume that she
had killed a person in order to get

643
00:52:07.960 --> 00:52:12.559
it. On January eleventh, when
Judy was out on bill for trying to

644
00:52:12.639 --> 00:52:15.920
murder John, she was arrested for
murdering her own son, nineteen year old

645
00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:21.360
Mike Goodyear, as well as grand
theft for his life insurance payouts. On

646
00:52:21.480 --> 00:52:25.440
January twenty sixth, nineteen eighty four, law enforcement officials exhumed the body of

647
00:52:25.480 --> 00:52:31.719
Bobby Joe Morris. Bobby's liver contained
a lethal level of arsenic and they believed

648
00:52:31.760 --> 00:52:37.320
the arsenic poison was likely what had
caused Bobby's heart attack. Judy was the

649
00:52:37.320 --> 00:52:42.960
prime suspect for Bobby's murder. She
didn't face any criminal charges yet because they

650
00:52:43.000 --> 00:52:45.320
wanted to see how the trials for
Mike and John went. But the state

651
00:52:45.360 --> 00:52:50.840
of Florida was suing Judy. They
wanted her to return the insurance payouts from

652
00:52:50.880 --> 00:52:55.920
Bobby's death. By March sixth,
John Gentry had filed a civil suit against

653
00:52:55.960 --> 00:53:00.320
Judy for the attempted poisoning and car
bomb. He wanted more than five thousand

654
00:53:00.400 --> 00:53:06.800
damages, which seems crazy generous.
Judy filed a countersuit against John, demanding

655
00:53:06.800 --> 00:53:12.519
more than fifteen thousand damages for what. I'm not sure. At this point,

656
00:53:12.639 --> 00:53:16.079
investigators were also looking into James Goodyear's
death. They exhumed to his body

657
00:53:16.119 --> 00:53:20.880
on March fourteenth, nineteen eighty four, and based on the amount of arsenic

658
00:53:20.960 --> 00:53:24.760
found, they determined that he had
been poisoned. If you're losing track of

659
00:53:24.760 --> 00:53:29.000
what's going on, don't worry.
It all gets cleaned up in a second.

660
00:53:30.079 --> 00:53:32.719
On Tuesday, March twentieth, nineteen
eighty four, Judy's first trial began.

661
00:53:35.159 --> 00:53:38.039
This one was for Mike's death and
the insurance payouts relating to him.

662
00:53:38.079 --> 00:53:43.559
If convicted, Judy could receive one
of two sentences. She would either die

663
00:53:43.559 --> 00:53:46.719
by the electric chair or receive life
in prison without parole for at least twenty

664
00:53:46.719 --> 00:53:52.079
five years. And of course,
the trial was an incredibly high profile event,

665
00:53:52.719 --> 00:53:55.760
so much so that the judge had
to set special rules for the media.

666
00:53:57.320 --> 00:54:01.000
He banned all flash photography in the
courtroom, created guidelines about when journalists

667
00:54:01.039 --> 00:54:06.400
could stand up to leave, and
only allowed one TV camera. That single

668
00:54:06.480 --> 00:54:12.639
camera broadcasted live coverage of the trial
to numerous TV stations. Due to the

669
00:54:12.679 --> 00:54:16.159
intense coverage of Judy's case, they
had a tricky time finding unbiased jurors.

670
00:54:16.760 --> 00:54:21.320
About one third of the jury pool
had already decided how they felt about Judy.

671
00:54:21.800 --> 00:54:23.760
They had either read about her in
the papers or seeing her face plastered

672
00:54:23.800 --> 00:54:28.639
on the news. Finally, the
jurors were selected, and, in a

673
00:54:28.760 --> 00:54:35.119
rare event, sequestered and opening statements
began. Throughout Judy's trial, she would

674
00:54:35.159 --> 00:54:37.960
often look at her eighteen year old
son James Junior and seventeen year old daughter

675
00:54:38.039 --> 00:54:44.119
Kimberly across the courtroom. They would
communicate in a version of sign language,

676
00:54:44.199 --> 00:54:50.400
and Judy often blew them kisses.
Outside of these moments, Judy appeared emotionless

677
00:54:52.280 --> 00:54:58.000
during the trial itself. The prosecution
explained that Mike was spurned by his mother

678
00:54:58.119 --> 00:55:02.400
and hidden away in institutions until she
came up with a final solution, and

679
00:55:02.480 --> 00:55:07.880
that solution, according to the prosecution, was to drown Mike in the river

680
00:55:07.719 --> 00:55:14.239
and to pretend it was an accident. The prosecutors suggested that Judy's son,

681
00:55:14.480 --> 00:55:19.159
James Junior, had helped kill Mike. James Junior would have been fourteen at

682
00:55:19.159 --> 00:55:22.760
the time of Mike's death. The
state argued that both Judy and James Junior

683
00:55:22.760 --> 00:55:28.519
had simply pushed Mike into the river. Afterward, they had overturned their own

684
00:55:28.559 --> 00:55:32.679
canoe and waited for someone to find
them, and then they had concocted their

685
00:55:32.719 --> 00:55:38.719
outlandish tree branch snake, tree stump
story to help cover their tracks. Of

686
00:55:38.760 --> 00:55:44.079
course, Judy's defense team denied this. Her lawyers claimed that Mike's death was

687
00:55:44.119 --> 00:55:47.519
a terrible accident, that this entire
trial was meant to torment a loving,

688
00:55:47.599 --> 00:55:52.440
grieving mother who had lost her son
in a tragedy. Perhaps, they admitted

689
00:55:52.760 --> 00:55:58.360
Judy was guilty of negligence she should
have made Mike, her paraplegic son,

690
00:55:58.559 --> 00:56:05.559
wear a life vest, but otherwise
this was just a gross misinterpretation of events.

691
00:56:05.559 --> 00:56:09.119
But the placement of Mike's body and
belongings did not match Judy's stories about

692
00:56:09.199 --> 00:56:16.000
how Mike drowned, and Judy's stories
had changed so many times multiple witnesses said

693
00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:21.079
as much. Sometimes Judy even said
that Mike had been the one paddling the

694
00:56:21.159 --> 00:56:25.840
canoe. But how Mike was paralyzed, he couldn't have done the things Judy

695
00:56:25.840 --> 00:56:31.280
said he did, And according to
court documents, Judy had a clear motive.

696
00:56:31.760 --> 00:56:37.360
She was experiencing extreme financial hardship right
before Mike passed, she had had

697
00:56:37.360 --> 00:56:40.480
twenty four checks bounts, and her
bank account went into the red more than

698
00:56:40.519 --> 00:56:45.440
ten times. She needed cash fast, and so she took out several life

699
00:56:45.440 --> 00:56:52.000
insurance policies in Mike's name. A
handwriting expert for the state indicated that Judy

700
00:56:52.039 --> 00:56:57.920
had even signed the policies herself.
Perhaps the most compelling testimony was that of

701
00:56:57.960 --> 00:57:04.159
doctor David P. Nicholson Sacred Heart
Hospital. Doctor Nicholson said that, based

702
00:57:04.159 --> 00:57:07.840
on Mike's autopsy, his sudden paralysis
was part of a nervous system disorder,

703
00:57:08.280 --> 00:57:13.840
one that was caused by heavy metal
poisoning due to ingesting arsenic and lead.

704
00:57:14.920 --> 00:57:19.920
So it's likely that the entire reason
Mike became paralyzed was because of Judy.

705
00:57:20.119 --> 00:57:23.039
When he came home on leave in
October of nineteen seventy nine, she tried

706
00:57:23.039 --> 00:57:28.880
to poison him to capitalize on those
insurance payouts, and when that failed,

707
00:57:29.320 --> 00:57:32.079
Judy was now forced to take care
of her disabled son, so she found

708
00:57:32.119 --> 00:57:37.039
another way to exterminate him. She
enlisted her other son, James Junior,

709
00:57:37.360 --> 00:57:42.639
and took Mike on a special canoeing
trip, making sure he did not make

710
00:57:42.679 --> 00:57:45.880
it back. And as it turns
out. Mike didn't even like being on

711
00:57:45.920 --> 00:57:51.360
the water. According to his friend's
testimony, Mike never would have asked to

712
00:57:51.360 --> 00:57:57.159
go canoeing, He was just there
to spend time with his family. The

713
00:57:57.239 --> 00:58:01.280
trial lasted ten days. James Junior
Kimberly both testified in support of their mother,

714
00:58:02.000 --> 00:58:07.639
but Judy herself did not testify,
and at about one am on March

715
00:58:07.679 --> 00:58:12.239
thirty first, nineteen eighty four,
after deliberating for four hours, they found

716
00:58:12.320 --> 00:58:15.119
Judy guilty of first degree murder in
the death of her son. She was

717
00:58:15.159 --> 00:58:21.440
also found guilty of grand theft.
Later, on June sixth of nineteen eighty

718
00:58:21.440 --> 00:58:25.039
four, Judy was sentenced to life
in prison for first degree murder. She

719
00:58:25.199 --> 00:58:30.960
also received fifteen years in prison for
the grand theft. At this time,

720
00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:35.840
the banks had foreclosed on Judy's Guelfbrie's
home and repossessed three of her vehicles.

721
00:58:37.760 --> 00:58:40.960
Next up was the trial for Judy's
attempt on John Gentry's life. By this

722
00:58:42.039 --> 00:58:45.360
point, she faced charges for both
poisoning John and trying to kill him through

723
00:58:45.400 --> 00:58:51.239
the car bomb. Meanwhile, James
Junior had also been arrested for his alleged

724
00:58:51.280 --> 00:58:54.440
involvement in the car bomb. He
would have been seventeen at the time and

725
00:58:54.519 --> 00:58:59.599
now in nineteen eighty four, eighteen
year old James Junior had his own separate

726
00:58:59.599 --> 00:59:04.559
troph that but the only true piece
of evidence linking James Junior to this car

727
00:59:04.599 --> 00:59:07.639
bomb was a specific wire that was
found in his closet. The wire was

728
00:59:07.679 --> 00:59:13.840
not common, it was mostly used
in car bombs, but the state could

729
00:59:13.880 --> 00:59:17.679
not prove that the wire belonged to
James Junior. Apparently multiple family members used

730
00:59:17.679 --> 00:59:22.480
this closet, not just James Junior, so he was acquitted. On October

731
00:59:22.559 --> 00:59:28.360
fifteenth, nineteen eighty four, Judy's
trial for attempting to murder John Gentry began.

732
00:59:29.159 --> 00:59:32.159
The story arc for the state prosecution
was very similar to Judy's trial for

733
00:59:32.239 --> 00:59:37.679
killing Mike. Judy needed money,
She took out life insurance policies on John,

734
00:59:37.079 --> 00:59:42.199
and then she tried to kill him. To help illustrate that Judy knew

735
00:59:42.199 --> 00:59:45.760
an influx of cash was coming,
Susan Williams, unemployee of Judy's Fingers and

736
00:59:45.800 --> 00:59:52.239
Faces, testified. Susan said that
Judy was planning on taking a world cruise,

737
00:59:52.760 --> 00:59:57.119
one that would cost twenty thousand per
person. That's about sixty thousand in

738
00:59:57.159 --> 01:00:00.280
today's money, and Judy was going
to take her self and her two surviving

739
01:00:00.360 --> 01:00:07.840
kids, but not John. Susan
also believed that Judy had faked a fainting

740
01:00:07.840 --> 01:00:13.199
spell upon learning of John's car bomb. Judy's defense didn't really have a leg

741
01:00:13.239 --> 01:00:16.719
to stand on. She was convicted
of this crime in October nineteen eighty four,

742
01:00:17.199 --> 01:00:21.960
and on November sixth, nineteen eighty
four, Judy was sentenced to twelve

743
01:00:22.039 --> 01:00:25.800
years in prison for attempted second degree
murder in the case of John Gentry.

744
01:00:25.840 --> 01:00:30.840
A year later, in October of
nineteen eighty five, Judy began her third

745
01:00:30.920 --> 01:00:35.519
jury trial, this one for murdering
her first husband, James Edgar Goodyear in

746
01:00:35.639 --> 01:00:42.000
nineteen seventy one. The state brought
in three medical experts who testified that James

747
01:00:42.000 --> 01:00:46.679
had died of arsenic poisoning, and
two of Judy's previous friends, Constance Lang

748
01:00:46.719 --> 01:00:52.239
and Mary Beverly Owen, testified that
Judy was very unhappy with her marriage.

749
01:00:52.639 --> 01:00:57.519
Judy had even spoken to them on
different occasions about killing someone with arsenic by

750
01:00:57.559 --> 01:01:05.280
poisoning their food. To Constance laying, Judy never even considered divorcing James.

751
01:01:05.320 --> 01:01:08.480
She only wanted to use poison to
solve her marital problems. That way,

752
01:01:08.679 --> 01:01:15.480
she could receive insurance money and VA
benefits. At this trial for James Senior,

753
01:01:15.639 --> 01:01:20.199
evidence was also presented about Bobby Joe
Morris. The state demonstrated that Bobby

754
01:01:20.239 --> 01:01:23.639
had died in a very similar manner
as James, and that Bobby had also

755
01:01:23.679 --> 01:01:30.719
experienced the same symptoms as someone poisoned
with arsenic vomiting, nausea, and diarrhea.

756
01:01:30.400 --> 01:01:34.719
The state was trying to show that
Judy had a history with arsenic and

757
01:01:34.800 --> 01:01:38.760
apparently they did so successfully because Judy
was convicted for the first degree murder of

758
01:01:38.840 --> 01:01:44.599
James Edgar Goodyear, and on November
twenty sixth, nineteen eighty five, she

759
01:01:44.679 --> 01:01:49.760
was sentenced to death. Although Judy
would never stand trial for Bobby's death,

760
01:01:50.119 --> 01:01:53.920
it's widely understood that she killed him, but since Judy was already sentenced to

761
01:01:53.920 --> 01:02:00.480
death, the authorities didn't bother with
pursuing Bobby's murder in court. Judy appealed

762
01:02:00.519 --> 01:02:04.199
her case, and on June twenty
third, nineteen eighty eight, the Supreme

763
01:02:04.199 --> 01:02:08.280
Court of Florida denied her and her
execution was scheduled for March thirtieth, nineteen

764
01:02:08.400 --> 01:02:14.920
ninety eight. In the days before
Judy's execution, The Orlando Sentinel reported that

765
01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:20.599
John Gentry, Judy's only surviving victim, said there are people so evil that

766
01:02:20.639 --> 01:02:23.800
they really don't need to be among
civilized people. She'd preyed upon people that

767
01:02:23.880 --> 01:02:30.119
loved her. John also told Fox
News, if they would allow me,

768
01:02:30.280 --> 01:02:36.599
I would pull the switch myself.
After surviving Judy Buenajuano, John Gentry went

769
01:02:36.639 --> 01:02:39.679
on to remarry and have two children
of his own. The day before her

770
01:02:39.679 --> 01:02:45.119
execution, Judy appealed for a stay
of execution. Although she had never spoken

771
01:02:45.159 --> 01:02:49.599
to reporters, even turning down twenty
twenty and sixty minutes, she did make

772
01:02:49.599 --> 01:02:52.960
an appearance on NBC for this final
appeal. I can't find the contents of

773
01:02:53.000 --> 01:02:59.119
that interview, but it must have
gone poorly. Judy's living children, James

774
01:02:59.239 --> 01:03:04.599
Junior and Kim, spoke out against
their mother's execution. They asked that their

775
01:03:04.599 --> 01:03:08.480
mother be spared. Kim called it
a hate crime against God and humanity.

776
01:03:08.519 --> 01:03:14.000
But the stay of execution was denied, and so on March thirtieth of nineteen

777
01:03:14.079 --> 01:03:17.639
ninety eight, Judy woke up at
about one am. She ate her final

778
01:03:17.679 --> 01:03:22.719
mill at four thirty am. It
consisted of steamed broccoli, steamed asparagus with

779
01:03:22.800 --> 01:03:28.719
lemon, tomato and black pepper,
fresh strawberries, and hot tea. Then

780
01:03:28.840 --> 01:03:32.880
Judy showered and dressed. At seven
oh one am, fifty four year old

781
01:03:34.119 --> 01:03:38.000
Judias W. Buenajuano died by the
electric chair at the Florida State Prison in

782
01:03:38.039 --> 01:03:43.000
Stark, Florida. At the time
of her death, Judy still claimed that

783
01:03:43.039 --> 01:03:47.320
she did not kill Mike. Maybe
admitting to murdering her own son was too

784
01:03:47.440 --> 01:03:52.400
much for her. Husbands seemed to
come and go for Judy, But perhaps

785
01:03:52.480 --> 01:03:57.000
Mike's murder was the only one she
felt guilty for. And why did she

786
01:03:57.119 --> 01:04:00.159
change her name so many times?
Was it an attempt to evade authorities?

787
01:04:00.719 --> 01:04:05.000
But she changed her name before the
murders, so was it a self esteem

788
01:04:05.079 --> 01:04:11.519
problem? By most accounts, she
had a terrible childhood. Maybe she already

789
01:04:11.559 --> 01:04:15.000
hated herself and was trying on new
identities. One thing we can be sure

790
01:04:15.039 --> 01:04:20.639
of, Judy was a pathological liar
about many things. But let's get to

791
01:04:20.679 --> 01:04:26.760
the why of the Judy Buanano murders. I think it's obvious that it's the

792
01:04:26.800 --> 01:04:31.960
second oldest reason for killing money.
Most of the female poisoners I've covered seemed

793
01:04:32.000 --> 01:04:36.440
to have a compulsion to poison,
like Blanche Taylor Moore or Katie Strickland.

794
01:04:36.760 --> 01:04:43.079
They became addicted to the act like
most serial killers, but Judy was clearly

795
01:04:43.079 --> 01:04:47.639
addicted to money. She had learned
early on in the seventies that doctors and

796
01:04:47.719 --> 01:04:55.320
medical examiners often mispoison quickly, making
it her weapon of choice. It's difficult

797
01:04:55.320 --> 01:05:00.519
to compare the motives of killer sometimes, but somehow, those that have a

798
01:05:00.519 --> 01:05:04.159
compulsion to kill their relatives seem like
they have to be mentally ill. They're

799
01:05:04.159 --> 01:05:09.800
addicted to the secrecy of watching the
suffering of their victims. It's not always

800
01:05:09.800 --> 01:05:15.159
about financial gain, but Judy Bueno
Juano did it for the money, her

801
01:05:15.239 --> 01:05:19.079
husband's and her own flesh and blood, and that feels more cold and calculating.

802
01:05:20.519 --> 01:05:25.800
And yet there is no doubt that
despite differing motives, these women killers

803
01:05:25.960 --> 01:05:30.679
enjoyed causing pain. All of these
women were addicted to the power they felt

804
01:05:30.760 --> 01:05:35.000
over a loved one's life, which, regardless of the weapon and regardless of

805
01:05:35.039 --> 01:05:45.480
the victim, is still the definition
of a serial killer. Southern Fried True

806
01:05:45.480 --> 01:05:48.880
Crime is hosted and produced by me
Erica Kelly. Today's episode was researched and

807
01:05:48.880 --> 01:05:54.280
written by Andrea Marshbank, with additional
writing by me. As usual, all

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editorial comments are my own. Southern
Fried's original music is by Rob Harrison of

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01:05:59.000 --> 01:06:03.000
Gamma Radio, and the original graphic
art is by Coley Horner. Today's episode

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was edited and mixed by Brandon scheck
Snyder of Southern Gothic and Erica Kelly.

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If you have any case suggestions,
please go to my website and click on

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the listeners suggestion tab. This is
the best way for me to get those

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01:06:15.320 --> 01:06:20.000
little known cases Y'll always send me. Please remember that I don't accept suggestions

814
01:06:20.000 --> 01:06:26.000
on social media private messaging, but
please come join our Facebook group, Southern

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Fried True Crime Fans Discussion Group,
where we swap recipes, worship Dolly Parton,

816
01:06:30.480 --> 01:06:33.400
and share means. We do,
of course discuss true crime, not

817
01:06:33.440 --> 01:06:36.599
just Southern Fried, but all kinds, but it is still very much a

818
01:06:36.639 --> 01:06:41.639
Southern lifestyle group. Our group is
a safe and phone corner of Facebook,

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and by God, we mean it
when we say no shit ass is allowed.

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It's not just a motto, it's
how we run the group. If

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you enjoy today's show, don't forget
to subscribe, and please tell a friend

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01:06:49.920 --> 01:06:55.280
or rate and review. I'm also
on all large platforms like iTunes, a

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Heart, Spotify, Amazon, and
Audible. Until next time, so much

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for listening. You'll take care