Judy Buenoano - The Black Widow

On May 13, 1980, Judy Buenoano decided to take her three children (Michael – age 19, James – age 14 and Kimberly – age 13) on a fishing trip.  They drove to the East River, about a half-hour from their home in Gulf Breeze, Florida.  Kimberly was left on shore while the other three boarded a two-person canoe.  James was in the front, Judy was in the back, and Michael was seated between them in a folding lawn chair because he had just been fitted with braces on both his legs and his right arm.

About two hours into the trip the canoe capsized throwing all three into the water.  Judy and James stayed afloat and were rescued by a passing boater.  Michael, having no function in his arms or legs and weighed down by his heavy metallic braces sank to the bottom of the river and died.

This is the story of Judy Buenoano, dubbed “the Black Widow” by prosecutors and the press, who on March 30, 1998 became the first woman to die in Florida’s electric chair.

Judias (Judy) Buenoano was born on April 4, 1943 in Quanah, Texas, a small town about two hundred miles outside of Dallas.  Her given name was Anna Lou Welty.  She was the youngest of four children.  Her father, Jessie Welty, was a farm laborer who joined the Army at the outset of World War II. Her mother, Mary, was afflicted with tuberculosis and was often bedridden.

While stationed in Germany Jessie was injured from an artillery shell.  He sustained wounds to his back, legs, and lungs.  When he returned home he was severely crippled and unable to help Mary, who was getting sicker by the day, care for the children.

Mary Welty succumbed to her illness and died in 1947 leaving behind her husband and children, including Anna who was just four years old.  It was obvious that Jessie could not care for the children and Mary’s brother petitioned the courts to remove them from the home.  In the end, her eldest brother joined the military, the other two brothers were sent to an orphanage, and Anna was placed with her grandparents.

While Anna’s grandparents were willing to act as stand-in parents for her, their ages and financial circumstances were hindrances.  Anna lived with a series of other families over the next few years.  In each case she was subjected to abuse.

One family was that of a Reverend Cross who lived in Temple, Texas.  It was alleged that the Reverend Cross paid Anna’s father $500 for her to live with them.  It’s easy to assume that the money was not paid because of the goodness within the Reverend’s heart.  Judy later claimed that, while living with the family, she was beaten with a rubber hose for any slight infraction of house rules.  Beyond that, the details of her life there are unknown.

For a short time she lived with a family by the name of Pursley.  It is not clear if the Pursleys legally adopted the child, but her name was changed to Judias Anna Pursley.  They called her Judy.  Judy claimed that, while in their custody, Mrs. Presley sexually abused her and made her nurse on the woman’s breasts even though she was well past the age for suckling.  She also claimed that she sexually abused Judy and threatened to leave her out in the woods at night to be “eaten by the devil.”  After about a month Mr. Pursley died and Judy went through several more abusive foster placements until she was eventually returned to her grandparents.

Meanwhile, Judy’s father remarried and relocated to Roswell, New Mexico.  When Judy was nine years she was sent to live there with her father, his new wife, and his wife’s two sons by a previous marriage.  The family was very poor, lived in a ramshackle trailer and had little food.  Judy was forced to steal food for the family on a daily basis and was severely beaten by her stepmother if she did not bring any home.

The abuse did not stop there.  Judy endured cruelty from the entire family that included beatings, starvation and being burned with cigarettes.  At the age of fourteen, Judy lashed out.  She grabbed a pan of hot grease from the stove and flung it at her stepbrothers.  She attacked her father and stepmother with fists and feet, pelting them with anything she could lay her hands on.  Judy was arrested for the assault and spent sixty days in jail.

At her release hearing the judge gave Judy the option of returning to her family, returning to her grandparents, or being confined to reform school.  She chose reform school.  She spent the next two years at Foothills High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Her time there was the most stable period in her life to date, and she was happy just to be fed, clothed, and not abused.  At age sixteen, she “graduated” and was released.

In 1960, Judy returned to Roswell and got a job as a nurse’s aide at Eastern Medical Center.  She lived and worked under the pseudonym of Anna Schultz, perhaps to remain hidden from her family.  During this time she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, Michael.  As Michael grew it was clear that he suffered from developmental disabilities.  These would worsen as he grew older, but Judy and those around her just considered him “slow.”

Faced with raising a handicapped child alone, Judy soon met and in 1962 married James Goodyear, an Air Force officer stationed at a nearby base.  By all accounts James was a good husband and father, even adopting Michael as his own.  During the next several years the couple had two more children – James, Jr. in 1966 and Kimberly in 1967.  The family then moved to Orlando, Florida.

Judy and James Goodyear with James, Jr.

The Vietnam War was now underway and James Sr. was called up for duty.  Shortly after his return home he began feeling ill, suffering from nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.  He was also experiencing hallucinations.  Doctors could find no explanation for his symptoms.  He died on September 16, 1971.  The official cause of death was “cardiovascular collapse and renal failure.”

Judy soon found a new boyfriend and moved in with Bobby Joe Morris in 1972.  Her new life in Pensacola was made difficult by her son’s psychiatric issues.  Michael, now a teenager, was acting out, causing trouble in school and generally making life miserable for her.  For a short time he was placed in foster care, but moved with the family when they relocated to Trinidad, Colorado in 1977.

Soon after moving to Colorado, Bobby Joe Morris became violently ill.  His symptoms were nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and hallucinations.  He was admitted to San Rafael Hospital on January 4, 1978.  The doctors could not determine the cause of his illness and he was returned home on January 21.  Two days later he collapsed while eating dinner.  He was rushed back to the hospital, but again no cause of his illness could be found.  Bobby Joe Morris died on January 28, 1978.  The stated cause of death was cardiac arrest.

A few months later, Judy legally changed her name to Buenoano (Goodyear in Spanish) and the family moved back to Gulf Breeze, Florida, near Pensacola.

Michael Buenoano dropped out of school and joined the Army in 1979.  Maybe military service would help him find stability.  After basic training he stopped off to visit his mother, brother, and sister at their home and from there went on to his new station at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Michael began to feel ill almost immediately upon his arrival at Fort Benning.  Blood tests were ordered to determine the cause of his bouts of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.  Doctors discovered that he had seven times the normal level of arsenic in his blood stream.  He was diagnosed with heavy metal neuropathy and transferred to Walter Reed Hospital.  He spent the next three months at Walter Reed where he was fitted with braces on both of his legs and on one arm.  He was told that he would never walk again or regain use of his limbs.  From there, he was sent to the Veterans Administrative Hospital in Tampa.

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On May 12, 1980, Michael’s mother, Judy, picked up her son from the hospital.  They released Michael into her care after being assured that she modified her home to accommodate his disability.  She said that she had arranged for him to receive rehabilitative care near her home.  It would be much better for him to heal at home under his mother’s guidance rather than in a hospital.

The very next day, Judy took the family on a fishing trip on the East River, a tributary of the St. Marks River.  Kimberly waited on shore while Judy and her two sons set out in a small canoe.  Michael, who because of his disability could not sit in the canoe, was seated in a folding lawn chair between Judy and James. 

During the trip the canoe somehow capsized and all three were thrown into the water.  Judy and James were able to stay afloat and were rescued by a passing boater.  Michael was pulled underwater by the sixty pounds weight of his braces and did not resurface.  Their rescuer later testified that Judy told him that the canoe overturned when a snake jumped into it and that there was no use going back for Michael.  Michael’s lifeless body was recovered three hours later by a county rescue squad.

Michael Goodyear's Headstone

Soon thereafter, Judy began seeing John Gentry, a local businessman.  John was fairly well off and treated Judy to expensive gifts and vacations.  They began living together and got engaged.  In November of 1982, John caught a cold and Judy gave him vitamin C capsules to treat it.  Soon, he began feeling ill and Judy suggested that he double the dose.  Still the nausea, vomiting and diarrhea continued and he checked himself into the hospital.  He recovered in the hospital and was released.  Judy again started him on a regimen of vitamin capsules.

When John started feeling sick again he became suspicious and had some of the capsules tested.  They were found to contain paraformaldehyde, a chemical used as a disinfectant, agricultural chemical and wood preservative. Although this news disturbed him, it was apparently not enough to make him leave the relationship.

On June 25, 1983 Judy told John that she was pregnant.  He left a dinner at the Driftwood Restaurant in Pensacola planning to buy champagne to celebrate the occasion.  When he got in his car and started the ignition the vehicle exploded.  It was later determined that someone had placed five sticks of dynamite in the trunk of his car.  If the explosives had been placed elsewhere in the car he surely would have perished.  However, even though he sustained serious injuries doctors were able to save him.

The Remains of John Gentry's Car

When police began investigating the car bombing they discovered that John Gentry had taken out a life insurance policy on himself in the amount of $50,000 in October, 1982.  Judy later increased the amount to $500,000 without his knowledge.  They also learned (along with John) that Judy was not pregnant as she had claimed.  In fact, she was surgically sterilized several years earlier.  She also had booked a cruise for the entire family – except John.

Faced with the evidence, John supplied the police with some of the “vitamin” capsules which he previously had tested.  Police tests confirmed the presence of paraformaldehyde.  Officers searched her home and found wires and tape matching those used in the car bomb.  In James’ room they found marijuana and a sawed off shotgun.  They were able to confirm a series of telephone calls between Judy and the seller of the dynamite. Mother and son were both arrested:  James for drug and gun offences and Judy for attempted murder.  Charges against James were later upgraded when police alleged that he had assembled the bomb.

With Judy Buenoano under indictment for the attempted murder of John Gentry, police began looking into the curious circumstances surrounding the death of the other men in her life.  They learned that when her husband, James Goodyear, died Judy collected $33,000 from life insurance as well as $62,642 in veteran benefits.  When Bobby Joe Morris died she collected $23,000 and her house was paid off.  Upon the death of her son, Michael Goodyear, she pocketed another $100,000 in life insurance payments.  These amounts are in addition to the $500,000 and her share of the estate which she would have received if the attempt on John’s life had been successful.

On March 31, 1984 Judy Buenoano was convicted of first degree murder for the death of her son, Michael.  At trial it was suggested that she first tried to poison Michael, failing to kill him but causing his disability.  When that scheme did not go as planned, she took him out on the river and pushed him overboard.  She was also convicted of grand theft for the fraudulent collection of his life insurance policies.  On June 16 of that year she learned her sentence – life in prison with no possibility of parole.

On October 16 Judy was tried for the attempted murder of John Gentry.  Gentry testified at the trial as did several of Judy’s friends.  Judy’s friends stated that she told them for several months before the bombing that John was terminally ill.  After a trial lasting just two days she was convicted of attempted first degree murder and sentenced to twelve years in prison.  In a separate trial her son, James, was found not guilty of his alleged role in the plot.

A year later, in October 1985, the trial began for the murder of her first husband, James Goodyear.  Goodyear’s body had been exhumed in March and tested positive for arsenic.  Already in prison for the other two crimes, jurors did not believe her when she testified in her own defense, denying everything.  It took just a few hours of deliberation for them to find her guilty of first degree murder.  The judge, finding no mitigating circumstances, sentenced her to death by electrocution.

Although Colorado authorities had enough evidence to prosecute Judy Buenoano for the murder of Bobby Joe Morris, they declined given the sentences she had already received in Florida.  They would step in, if needed, in the very unlikely event that Judy was ever released.  Buenoano was later suspected of other murders in Alabama and Florida.  However by that time was already on Florida’s death row and she was never charged.

After her conviction, Judy was confined for the next thirteen years in a six by nine feet cell at Broward Correctional Institution at Pembroke Pines, near Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  Like all death row prisoners she wore an orange tee shirt and was confined to her cell except when escorted in handcuffs to the exercise yard or shower.  During this time she maintained her innocence and filed several appeals, all of which were denied.  Judy was a model inmate and spent her time crocheting blankets and baby clothes.  In a television interview shortly before her scheduled execution date she said, “I would like to clear the record for my grandson.  I would like for him to know that his grandmother was not a murderer.”

Old Sparky

After her appeals were exhausted, Judy was transferred to the State Penitentiary at Starke (otherwise known as Raiford Prison) to await execution.  There she was confined to a cell adjacent to the execution chamber which held “Old Sparky,” the electric chair built by prison inmates in 1923.  On her last day her visitors included her now adult children, Kim and James, along with other relatives.

Execution was scheduled for 7:00 a.m on Monday, March 30, 1998, the day that would have been Michael’s 37^th birthday.  At 4:30 a.m. she was showered and dressed.  Her head was shaved in order to better conduct the current. (A year earlier a foot long flame erupted from the head of convicted murderer as he was being electrocuted.)  She ate a final meal of asparagus, broccoli, strawberries and tea.

Prison guards had to nearly carry the 54 year old woman into the death chamber.  She clenched her fists and closed her eyes as she was strapped into the chair.  Electrodes were attached to her head, arms, legs, and chest.  When asked if she had any last words, Judy whispered “no sir” without opening her eyes.  A leather hood was placed over her head and the execution order was given.  With that, 2300 volts of electricity surged through her body and a small amount of white smoke was seen rising from her leg.  Judy Buenoano was pronounced dead at 7:13 a.m.

Judy Buenoano was the first woman to be executed in Florida in one hundred and fifty years.  The first was in 1848 when a slave named Celia was hanged for killing her master.  She was the first woman to be executed in Florida’s electric chair and only the third woman to be executed nationwide since capital punishment resumed in 1976 after a three year Supreme Court imposed moratorium.

Judy Buenoano very nearly got away with the murder of two people and maybe more.  Had it not been for the failed attempt on the life of John Gentry her other crimes might not have been discovered.  Her sad early life of abuse and neglect may have provided a reason for her behavior but not an excuse.  During her trial for her son’s death, prosecutor Russell Edgar told the judge, “She’s like a black widow – she feeds off her mates and her young.”  Like the Black Widow spider, Judy Buenoano killed the ones she purported to love.  As with the spider, there was no rationale for her actions; it was just in her nature.

Suggested Further Reading (ad):

South of the St. Marys River - Stories from the History of Northeast Florida

The Big Book of Serial Killers

The World's Most Evil Serial Killers: Crimes that Shocked the World

When the State Kills: Capital Punishment and the American Condition

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