Buenano Judias: The Black Widow's Execution

Judith Buenano received his sinister nickname Black Widow for a number of crimes committed by her for several years. Since slavery, she became the first woman to be sentenced to death in the US state of Florida. She was accused of poisoning her husband and killing her son, and also in an attempt to blow up her lover and in a number of other crimes.

Execution statistics

Buenoano Judias was born on April 4, 1943 in the small Texas town of Quan (USA). This already elderly woman became the first woman in the United States to be executed by electric chair, and the third since 1976, when this type of punishment was resumed.

One of her predecessors was Celia, a black slave who killed her master and was hanged in 1848, the other was Ronda Belle Martin, a waitress from Alabama who confessed to poisoning her mother with a rat poison , three children and two husbands. The latter was executed on an electric chair in October 1957.

Poisoning of husband and son

Buenoano Judias was recognized as the most cold-blooded and cynical killer in the history of the state of Florida. The first victim of this woman was her husband, James Goodyear, who in 1971 returned from the war in Vietnam. He was a sergeant in the US Air Force. According to the prosecutor, literally every dish given to him by his wife was generously flavored with arsenic. When the man died, she received for him a pretty solid insurance of 85 thousand dollars.

It can safely be said that impunity inspired Buenano to commit new crimes, since in 1980 she also dealt ruthlessly with her 19-year-old disabled son. Michael Goodyer suddenly fell seriously ill the year before his death. Among the symptoms of his disease was paraplegia, characterized by paralysis of the limbs. A post-mortem examination was carried out, during which it was discovered that he was also poisoned with arsenic. It was this poison that provoked his disability.

The mother carefully thought through the whole plan of the murder: she invited the guy to a river walk in a canoe, and when the boat was over the deepest place, pushed the unfortunate, whose legs were weighed down by support brackets, into the water. For this "inconsolable mother" again received insurance, but already in the amount of 125 thousand dollars.

Other crimes

For the third time, luck, finally, turned away from Judith Buenano (photo of the Black widow is presented in your article). Her next victim was to be her lover, John Gentry. To kill him, she planted explosives in his car, but the man noticed a strange bundle and immediately turned to the police.

I must say that the investigation into this case put forward many versions of the assassination attempt and only in the last instance remembered the "harmless" widow. The fact is that John Gentry on one of the interrogations said that Buenano Judias regularly gave him some multivitamins, from which his state of health deteriorated sharply. After the examination was carried out, it was found out that the capsules of the preparation were filled with deadly stuffing - arsenic.

Arrest and sentence

So, thanks to the testimony of her lover, the Black Widow was arrested in 1983. At first she was suspected of only committing one crime - in an attempt to murder. However, as the investigation into this case progressed, the police managed to find out that five years earlier she had poisoned another lover in the state of Colorado. It was Bobby Joe Morris. I must say that by the time the crime was discovered, Judias had already been sentenced to death for the murder of James Goodyear. Therefore, the newly discovered crime was simply absorbed by the earlier decision.

In addition, Judias was also suspected of killing another of her lovers, Gerald Dosset, who happened in 1980. After her arrest, the police exhumed the body of a man. It was subjected to a thorough investigation for signs of arsenic poisoning. Apparently, the suspicions were not confirmed, because the woman was never charged in this case. Instead, she was found guilty of several arsons that were committed in order to receive monetary compensation, as well as in insurance fraud.

Before execution

It is worth noting especially that Buenano Dzhudias herself, sitting in a prison cell specially designed for female suicide bombers and painted in pink, struggled for her life with great perseverance for 13 long years. She sent petitions for clemency to various instances, but the Supreme Court of Florida decided to leave the verdict unchanged.

It is known that the Black Widow spent the last day of her life in the company of her relatives - already adult children and grandchildren. In addition, her lawyers and even spiritual mentors came to say goodbye. Evening she spent reading a female novel and watching TV.

On the eve of the execution, the woman was awakened at 9am for the last breakfast, which consisted of broccoli with asparagus, cups of black tea and strawberries. At that time, outside the prison walls, a rally was held, organized by a group of democrats who protested against the use of the death penalty.

It is said that the Black Widow behaved surprisingly calmly. Judith Buenano, whose execution was held on March 30, 1998, refused to give her the opportunity to say the last word. She barely managed to close her eyes until the electric discharge passed through her body. By the time she turned 54 years old.