The Black Widow: America's Deadly Deceiver
The Judy Buenoano Story
Judy Buenoano, born Judias Welty, was an American murderer who gained notoriety for committing multiple crimes, including murder and fraud. She was born on April 4, 1943, in Quanah, Texas, and died on March 30, 1998.
Buenoano was married several times and had children from different relationships. Throughout her life, she engaged in a series of fraudulent activities, including insurance fraud and theft. However, her most heinous crimes involved the murder of her loved ones.
Shocking!
Judy Buenoano killed her husband, her next boyfriend, and even her own son for insurance money. And no one suspected a thing — until she tried to firebomb her last fiancé's car.
In 1971, Buenoano’s husband, James Goodyear, became severely ill and was hospitalized. Doctors initially believed his illness was due to natural causes, but it was later discovered that Buenoano had been poisoning him with arsenic. He survived but was left paralyzed. Buenoano received insurance payouts as a result of her husband’s illness and later divorced him.
In 1980, Buenoano’s son, Michael Goodyear, died in a suspicious boating accident. She collected an insurance payout following his death. Two years later, in 1982, Buenoano’s boyfriend, Bobby Joe Morris, also died in a similar boating accident. Again, she received an insurance payout.
These incidents caught the attention of law enforcement, and an investigation was launched. In 1983, Buenoano’s boyfriend’s body was exhumed, and traces of arsenic were found, leading to her arrest. Further investigations linked her to the other deaths and illnesses in her life.
In 1984, Judy Buenoano was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for the killing of her husband, James Goodyear. She was the first woman to be executed in Florida since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. Her execution took place on March 30, 1998, via electrocution.
Buenoano’s crimes and her execution garnered significant media attention due to the nature of her offenses and the fact that she was a woman. Her case highlighted the capacity for women to commit brutal crimes and demonstrated the importance of thorough investigations to bring criminals to justice.
