Being born and raised in the south myself, I am very aware of the term "southern hospitality". I usually think of older ladies sitting on their front porches drinking lemonade or sweet tea and eating pecan pie while exchanging soup recipes. Southern women, well most, love to cook and to cook for anyone. Blanche was that type of southern lady. She loved to cook and feed everyone, especially the men in her life. Of course, she had her own secret ingredient that all the men in her life would ingest, but only one man would survive.
Blanche Kiser Taylor Moore was born in 1933 to Flonnie Blanche and Parker Kiser. Her father was an ordained "minister" ( I use that term very lightly) who was an alcoholic and would sell Blanche for sex to cover his growing gambling debts. He died in 1966 of a "heart attack", or so everyone thought.
In 1952, Blanche married her first husband by the name of James N Taylor and they had two children together,. One in 1953 and one in 1959. In 1954, she began working at Kroger as a cashier. By 1959, she'd been promoted to head cashier (roughly the equivalent of a customer service manager today), the highest job available to a female employee at Kroger at the time. In 1962, she began an affair with Raymond Reid, the manager of the store where she worked. Ironically after her affair with Raymond started, her husband James began to get very ill. It got worse and worse and no doctor or hospital could figure out why he was so sick. He died in 1971 of an apparent " Heart Attack". Hmm.....anyone else seeing a theme here? Just me?
After her husband's death in 1971, Blanche and Raymond began dating publicly. By 1985, however, the relationship had began to lose it's luster. There are indications that she began to date Kevin Denton, the regional manager for Kroger, however, that relationship ended, and Moore filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Denton and Kroger in October 1985. Denton was forced to resign, and Kroger settled the case out of court two years later for $275,000.
Moore had met Rev. Dwight Moore before leaving Kroger. However, she had to hide her relationship with Rev. Moore because her lawsuit against Kroger maintained that she was "completely alienated and antagonistic towards men and has not been able to maintain any meaningful social contacts with the opposite sex." While she was dating Rev. Moore, she asked him to procure some arsenic-based ant killer for her. If you have not seen the movie, I would suggest watching it. It is on YouTube. She literally asked the REVEREND she was dating to buy the very arsenic she would try and kill him with. Bold bitch if I may say so myself.
In 1985, Blanche began to have a "pervert" come into her home to "fondle her lingerie" and "he" ended up setting two fires in her home. Now let me make it clear that Blanche was still sleeping with Raymond and now the Reverend. In 1986, Raymond became very sick with what doctor's thought was Shingles. He was hospitalized in April of that year, and died on October 7, 1986. Doctors indicated the cause of death was Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS) is a rapid-onset muscle weakness caused by the immune system damaging the peripheral nervous system. Typically, both sides of the body are involved, and the initial symptoms are changes in sensation or pain often in the back along with muscle weakness, beginning in the feet and hands, often spreading to the arms and upper body. The symptoms may develop over hours to a few weeks. During the acute phase, the disorder can be life-threatening, with about 15% of people developing weakness of the breathing muscles and, therefore, requiring mechanical ventilation. Some are affected by changes in the function of the autonomic nervous system, which can lead to dangerous abnormalities in heart rate and blood pressure.
Symptoms of arsenic poisoning may include:
red or swollen skin
skin changes, such as new warts or lesions
abdominal pain
nausea and vomiting
diarrhea
abnormal heart rhythm
muscle cramps
tingling of fingers and toes
Long-term exposure to arsenic can cause more severe symptoms.
darkening skin
constant sore throat
persistent digestive issues
See how easy it can be to misdiagnose? Raymond's sons wanted an autopsy done but Blanche talked them out of it saying that their father had been "poked and prodded" enough and she did not want him hacked into or cut up. The boys relented and agreed that since he is already gone it really didn't matter or would bring him back.
Blanche and Reverend Dwight Moore began seeing each other publicly shortly after Reid's death. They planned to marry, but in 1987, Blanche Moore developed breast cancer. The wedding date was pushed back to November 1988, but Moore developed a "mysterious" intestinal ailment that required two surgeries to correct. On 19 April 1989 the couple were married and honeymooned over a long weekend in New Jersey. They returned on a Monday, and on Wednesday Rev. Moore collapsed ill after eating a chicken sandwich. Doctors at N. C. Memorial in Chapel Hill determined that the cause was arsenic poisoning. Analysis later determined that Rev. Moore had survived the largest dose of arsenic from which a victim had not died. When he was told by investigators that they suspected Blanche, he refused to believe it. Not until they told him that she was sleeping with both him and Raymond at the same time did he start to believe she was capable of lying.
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation was notified, and exhumations occurred on James Taylor ( 1st husband) , Raymond Reid (boyfriend) , and her father. Subsequent autopsies showed elevated levels of arsenic in all of the bodies. This woman was killing every single man in her life with rat poison! It also emerged that doctors at Baptist Hospital had ordered a toxicology screen for Raymond Reid. The results showed a massive amount of arsenic in his system. However, on the day the test came back, the resident responsible for caring for Reid rotated to another hospital, and the new resident never passed the results up the chain of command. As a result, Reid received the final, fatal doses of arsenic in his hospital bed. How sad....
The SBI got suspicious of Blanche Moore when they found out she had tried to get Rev. Dwight Moore's pension changed so she would be the principal beneficiary. They also knew she had lied about how much money she had received from Raymond Reid's estate. During interviews, Blanche Moore mentioned that both Dwight Moore and Raymond Reid felt depressed and had probably been taking arsenic—something that was found highly improbable ( seriously? ) Let's talk about this. Arsenic poisoning is an awful, painful, way to die. Who would want to ever die that way???? . Blanche also had Dwight's hair cut in an attempt to prevent hair samples from being obtained by the SBI, but pubic hair samples were used instead. On July 18, 1989, Blanche Taylor Moore was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of Raymond Reid. Prosecutors opted to charge her with killing Reid rather than trying to kill Dwight Moore because they felt they'd be able to show her spooning arsenic-laced pudding to Reid. In Dwight Moore's case, doctors had recognized the signs of arsenic poisoning early on, making it more difficult to find out who was poisoning him.
Blanche was convicted on November 14. On November 17, the jury recommended the death penalty. On January 18, 1991, the presiding judge concurred with the jury and sentenced Moore to die by lethal injection. She currently resides at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women. She is prisoner # 0288088. She wrote music in the past, and spends her time writing poetry. Um, who gives a shit?
Because of the automatic appeals in progress, Moore has been able to stave off execution for over 20 years. She maintains her innocence to this day.
One of her attorneys, David Tamer, misappropriated client funds, including Moore's, and was convicted of embezzlement. He also had a history of mental problems. This woman is currently on death row at 89 years old!!!!!
Again, if you can watch the movie, it is called "The Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Story". You can find it on YouTube. Also, you can look up information on her on Murderpedia, Wikipedia, and numerous interviews and articles.
I will say that I am sure what her father did to her in her past was a cause of her being so untrusting of men. What's sad is that arsenic is very hard to see and hard to detect. I wish that so many people didn't have to die in order for her to finally be caught.
I hope she lives until she is 99 and still gets to be executed.
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