00:00:04
[suspenseful music] NARRATOR: June 25, 1983. Pensacola, Florida. 35-year-old John
Gentry was leaving
00:00:15
a party in the downtown area. He'd promised his
fiancee Judy Buenoano that he'd pick up some
champagne and meet her at home.
00:00:24
GARY PRINTY: Starts the engine,
turns on the lights, and boom. His car is blown to smithereens.
00:00:32
NARRATOR: Buenoano watched
in horror as John escaped the burning wreckage alive.
00:00:37
FRANK GENTRY: She tried
to kill my father. She didn't succeed. While he was in the
hospital recovering,
00:00:42
she tried to kill him again. DEBBIE SALAMONE: She was
every man's worst nightmare.
00:00:48
And if you met Judy, you should
run for your life literally. NARRATOR: Three men already
lay dead and buried.
00:00:56
Gentry should have
been the fourth. GARY PRINTY: She
was a great planner. And you just don't plan on
somebody surviving a car bomb.
00:01:05
FRANK GENTRY: She would
take insurance policies out and kill and collect. And that's why she was well off.
00:01:13
NARRATOR: Her victims were
those who loved her the most. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: She
doesn't want to have
00:01:18
to rely on other people. So she sees family
as a means to an end rather than an end in itself.
00:01:25
Many people will work to live,
work to support their family, but for her it's the
other way around.
00:01:31
NARRATOR: Judy Buenoano lived
a life full of lies and deceit. All of her victims
loved and trusted her,
00:01:39
but she only saw them
as money in the bank, making Judy Buenoano one of
the world's most evil killers.
00:01:47
[music playing] 1961, Roswell, New Mexico. 19-year-old Anna Schultz
had met and married
00:02:15
27-year-old James Goodyear. Anna was a nurse at Eastern
New Mexico Medical Center.
00:02:22
After they married,
Anna changed her name to Judy Goodyear
and James adopted her two-year-old son, Michael.
00:02:30
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: She developed
a really good knowledge of medicine and of drugs.
00:02:34
She became an
expert in her field, and she was able to use this
to manipulate those around her.
00:02:39
And I think she found medicine
quite an appealing field to go into because
it's about science.
00:02:46
It's about things that are
right, things that are wrong. It's very black and white.
00:02:50
It's very predictable. NARRATOR: 10 years
later, a fit and healthy James became mysteriously ill
and died at the age of 37.
00:03:00
GEOFFREY WANSELL: You
wouldn't immediately say, oh, he's been poisoned. You'd say it was natural causes.
00:03:04
Tragedy, unexpected,
but these things happen. But the thing about
Judy Goodyear,
00:03:10
as she was then calling
herself, is that of course she'd taken out a number of
life insurance policies
00:03:17
on James Goodyear. It was to become
her modus operandi. NARRATOR: After
the death of James,
00:03:26
she reinvented
herself once more, taking her new partner
Bobby Joe's surname and becoming Judy Morris,
he too would soon be dead.
00:03:36
DEBBIE SALAMONE: Bobby
Joe was eventually buried even though Judy had
requested he be cremated.
00:03:41
Bobby Joe's mother
insisted that the body be brought back home
to Alabama, where
00:03:46
he could be buried at home. NARRATOR: No man was safe, not
even her own flesh and blood.
00:03:54
FRANK GENTRY: Could
you imagine throwing your own son over the side of
a boat and watching him drown?
00:03:59
I mean, how twisted
you have to be to do that and live with yourself. Just incredible.
00:04:10
NARRATOR: She finally
became Judy Buenoano and thought she was invincible. GARY PRINTY: I think she began
to believe in her superiority
00:04:22
that she can actually
get away with this. And that's why the plans always
got a little more complex.
00:04:31
The insurance was
always a little bit more building for that
half million dollar policy
00:04:37
with John Gentry. She let her ego get
the better of her. I think she had been
really smart, brilliant,
00:04:47
cold blooded killer
with the other ones because she never really
went for the big prize.
00:04:57
NARRATOR: This killer story
begins on April 4, 1943. Judy Buenoano was born
Judias Anna Lou Welty
00:05:06
in the city of Quanah, Texas. Her father was a farm worker. And this family had a lot
of misfortune fall on it.
00:05:16
When she was two, her mother
passed away from tuberculosis. There were two
remaining siblings,
00:05:22
Judy and her brother Robert. Now, her father sent
them out to be adopted. So this is a real rejection.
00:05:29
It's a real abandonment. And they're living with
another family for a while until their grandmother
looks after them.
00:05:38
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Her
father remarried and moved to Roswell, New Mexico, with his
new wife and her two children
00:05:48
and reclaimed Judy and
Robert from the grandmother. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
This certainly
00:05:54
wasn't a return to a nice,
secure, stable family environment. This was out of the
frying pan into the fire.
00:06:01
This was a household in
which abuse and neglect were very much entrenched. And Judy and her
brother suffered
00:06:07
the most horrendous
abuse at the hands of her father and stepmother. NARRATOR: Judy was
treated as a slave
00:06:15
and forced to carry out
the household chores. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: She was told
that she had to do the cleaning
00:06:20
and if she didn't do it
particularly in the way that her father
wanted it done, she'd
00:06:25
be forced to sit and watch
the rest of the family eat their dinner while
she went without.
00:06:30
And they'd also started
beating up Robert, her brother, at this point in time. And she steps in to defend him.
00:06:38
She really attacks her
stepmother and her father. And she ends up serving
60 days in a jail facility
00:06:47
for this attack on her parents. GEOFFREY WANSELL: At
the end of the 60 days, she doesn't ask to return to
her father and stepmother.
00:06:56
On the contrary, she
says, no, I don't want to go home, not at all. I also don't want to see
my younger brother Robert.
00:07:02
She said memorably at one point,
I wouldn't spit down his throat if his guts were on fire.
00:07:10
NARRATOR: In 1959
at the age of 16, Judy graduated from
Foothills High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
00:07:19
GEOFFREY WANSELL: She
decides that she will manipulate the system
in every way she
00:07:24
possibly can to her advantage. She feels she's been badly
let down by her father,
00:07:31
by her mother dying, by
the fact of her childhood, by her stepmother. All the rest of his wells up
inside her in which she becomes
00:07:39
convinced that she's
going to get her own back. NARRATOR: Judy moved
to Roswell to study
00:07:45
at Eastern New
Mexico Medical Center and met a man called Schultz. She assumed his surname and
became known as Anna Schultz.
00:07:56
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Judy
goes to nursing school and she is a high
achiever there.
00:08:00
She achieves a PhD in
biology, in psychology. Many people will take years
and years to achieve a PhD,
00:08:08
to achieve this kind of
position in a hospital. But she seemed to
do it relatively
00:08:13
quickly because she didn't
really have any distractions. This was all about her.
00:08:18
NARRATOR: At the age of
17, Judy, now known as Anna Schultz, became pregnant. And on the 30th of March
1961 gave birth to a boy,
00:08:29
Michael Arthur Schultz. Judy had a child
out of wedlock. At the time, it would have
been a difficult situation
00:08:37
to find herself in, a
single mother trying to raise a child on her own. Judy seemed like a
very normal person.
00:08:44
She wanted to raise her son
well and provide for him. She just seemed
like everybody else.
00:08:52
NARRATOR: Shortly after
the birth of her son, Anna Schultz met James
Goodyear, a United
00:08:58
States Air Force mechanic. GEOFFREY WANSELL: 10
years older than she is, in every sense an
upright, sound individual.
00:09:09
And before too long, she
becomes Judy Goodyear. They marry. NARRATOR: James Goodyear
adopted Judy's son Michael.
00:09:18
And on the 16th of January 1966,
Judy gave birth to their son, also called James.
00:09:26
DEBBIE SALAMONE: Judy
and James had a very nice marriage for a while. They got along well.
00:09:32
They traveled. They went out to dinner. They did normal family things. NARRATOR: In 1967,
the Goodyear family
00:09:42
moved to Orlando, Florida,
and soon after, their daughter Kimberly was born. Judy wanted to
protect her family
00:09:51
and made sure they
were fully insured to cover any unforeseen events. DEBBIE SALAMONE: They got
along well for a time,
00:09:59
but then they started fighting. And it wasn't long
after that that James had to go to Vietnam.
00:10:08
During this time, it
was very stressful for Judy, because
now she's raising three children on her own.
00:10:14
After about a year, James came
back from Vietnam and Judy and he really tried to
make a go of things.
00:10:21
They tried to put all
the fighting behind them and rekindle their marriage and
provide for the three children.
00:10:29
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
And when she later talks about her
relationship with James, she describes it as
we were best friends.
00:10:36
She doesn't talk about love. She doesn't talk about
attachment or affection. She talks about him
as a friend, and that
00:10:43
is really interesting for me. GEOFFREY WANSELL: It's
almost incredible. She decides that she's going
to poison her husband very
00:10:56
carefully over a
long-ish period of time so that no one will notice that
in fact he's being poisoned.
00:11:05
So over a period of months,
she feeds James Goodyear a concoction of pills including
paraformaldehyde to effectively
00:11:17
obstruct his system. DEBBIE SALAMONE:
After a few months, he started to become
violently ill.
00:11:23
He was having hallucinations
and convulsions. He felt really terrible. He was just in really,
really bad shape.
00:11:33
Judy said that she knew
how to take care of him, but things just
kept getting worse.
00:11:39
NARRATOR: On September
16, 1971 at the age of 37, James Goodyear died at
the US Naval Hospital
00:11:48
in Orlando, Florida. DEBBIE SALAMONE: James's
death was just a mystery. Here he was young
and fit, having
00:11:55
just come out of the military. It really just
mystified everyone. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Judy puts a spin on it.
00:12:03
She says, I'm sure it's
because of a chemical element that they were using on
the military in Vietnam.
00:12:09
Surely it's something
to do with that. So she's got this narrative
that she's prepared in order
00:12:14
to actually explain his death. But when we kind of zoom out and
we look at the bigger picture,
00:12:20
Judy and James have been
together for around about a decade at this point. So you think, well, why
would she kill him now?
00:12:29
Why now? NARRATOR: For Judy Goodyear,
her husband James was worth more to her dead than alive.
00:12:40
September 20, 1971. Orlando, Florida. Five days after her
husband's death, Judy Goodyear surrendered
three life insurance
00:12:51
policies on James Goodyear. And then just to
add a little piquancy, she sets fire to
the house in Orlando
00:13:02
and claims the insurance
policy on that. You have a woman whose
greed knows few bounds.
00:13:11
But of course, she always
plans an escape route. NARRATOR: In 1972, Judy
moved with her three children
00:13:18
from Orlando to
Pensacola, Florida to live with the new man in
her life, Bobby Joe Morris.
00:13:25
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: She
meets him in the same year that James Goodyear is murdered.
00:13:30
And this perhaps
suggests to me there may have been a little
bit of an overlap here.
00:13:34
She may have had her
sights set on this guy before she killed
her first husband.
00:13:40
So there is no such
thing as coincidence when it comes to serial killers. So perhaps there was a plan
rolling out in the background
00:13:48
here. DEBBIE SALAMONE:
Bobby Joe and Judy had a really fun time together. They traveled, they
had nice dinners out.
00:13:57
They were a couple that
seemed to really hit it off. But then things
started to deteriorate
00:14:03
and Bobby Joe decided he didn't
want to be with Judy anymore. And he moved out to Colorado,
leaving her behind in Florida.
00:14:12
After Bobby Joe
went to Colorado, Judy followed and Bobby Joe
couldn't say no to Judy.
00:14:19
They reconciled and
they began trying to repair their relationship
and live happy together.
00:14:27
NARRATOR: In July 1977,
before Judy and her children joined Bobby Joe in Colorado,
another mysterious fire
00:14:35
engulfed their Pensacola home. Judy claimed the
insurance money. TED CHAMBERLAIN:
So they're up there
00:14:42
and she's going by
the name of Morris. They figured they lived
together for long enough
00:14:49
that she gave the
last name Morris. Nobody knew any difference. Of course, she was
getting insurance
00:14:54
policies all the
time on Bobby Joe up there, which he never saw. NARRATOR: It wasn't long before
Bobby Joe started to fall ill.
00:15:05
GARY PRINTY: He was
a heavy drinker, so no one's going to suspect
that his health is going bad.
00:15:11
And that was very
critical to her plan because obviously if very
healthy people are just
00:15:19
suddenly dying, that's going
to cause more problems than if someone who has a history
of seeming to be sickly,
00:15:29
not in good health,
drinking problem. You're not going to look as
hard into that as to a possible
00:15:39
was there foul play involved. DEBBIE SALAMONE: He
ended up in the hospital where Judy was working
as a nurse's aide.
00:15:47
So she took care
of him and looked after him the entire time
he was in the hospital.
00:15:54
Bobby Joe was incredibly ill. He was hallucinating. He had all kinds of pain. And he just was
mysteriously ill.
00:16:09
Doctors were having a
hard time figuring out what was wrong with Bobby Joe. TED CHAMBERLAIN: She puts
it off, tells everybody
00:16:15
that Bobby Joe is an alcoholic. And he drinks to excess. He drinks two bottles
of vodka a day.
00:16:24
He drinks a case of beer a day. He does all these things. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
And the physicians at
00:16:30
the hospital will
be of the view, well, why would
she lie about this? Here's somebody who
knows what she's on
00:16:35
about, who knows the patient. So she's filling in
the details for us. And that is a position
that she really
00:16:42
abused that position of power,
that position of influence. She was basically saying
this guy's just a bit
00:16:48
of a washed up old alcoholic
and these things happen. DEBBIE SALAMONE: Bobby Joe
got a little bit better
00:16:54
for a short period of time,
but then he got a lot worse and he deteriorated
in an agonizing way
00:17:03
and eventually he died. TED CHAMBERLAIN: Bobby Joe's
mother wanted Bobby Joe to come
00:17:11
home and Judy says, no, no, no. No, we're going to cremate him. And [inaudible] his mother
said, no you're not.
00:17:20
You're going to send him home. So Bobby Joe did get sent home. Judy didn't
attend the funeral.
00:17:27
But she had of
course insured his life and once again
collected a number of life insurance policies.
00:17:35
NARRATOR: On May 3, 1978,
the widow Judy Morris changed her family
name to Buenoano,
00:17:42
the Spanish equivalent
of Goodyear. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This is her
way of having a bit of a laugh.
00:17:47
She's taking the name of the
first person that she kills and she's using that in
one of her new identities.
00:17:54
So I think this does
show that real dark side of her sense of humor here. She's literally dangling a
victim in front of everybody.
00:18:03
NARRATOR: In June 1978, the
newly named Buenoano family left Colorado. Judy bought a house in Gulf
Breeze, Pensacola, Florida,
00:18:14
and set up home with
her three children. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Michael Buenoano Goodyear
00:18:19
was Judy's son, and he
was her first child, and he was a child that
was born out of wedlock.
00:18:25
So he would have created an
awful lot of stigma for Judy. TED CHAMBERLAIN: Michael
loved his mother Judy,
00:18:31
but she didn't care
for him at all. She didn't like him. If people came over to the house
when he was younger where she
00:18:39
was living, she would
hide him in another room or have a babysitter
take him out.
00:18:43
She was ashamed of him. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
And he was always doing things to try
and get her attention,
00:18:48
to try and make her proud. And it was a really
sad situation. NARRATOR: In 1979,
18-year-old Michael Buenoano
00:18:57
enlisted in the US Army. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think this
is very much a way of trying
00:19:02
to get his mother's
approval, because of course his stepfather, James
Goodyear, was a military man.
00:19:09
So he knows that
these are the kind of qualities in a man
that his mother admires,
00:19:14
or so he thinks. TED CHAMBERLAIN: And when
Michael got into the army, he went to this purification
school, water purification.
00:19:22
In water purification,
they use arsenic. GARY PRINTY: He came
home for Thanksgiving
00:19:30
to be with the family
and took ill, very ill. Because he was in
the military, he
00:19:36
was sent up to
Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC,
which is our Army hospital, very renowned place.
00:19:44
And they were treating him
and they saved his life. But he lost basically muscular
control of his arms and legs.
00:19:55
So he became essentially
a paraplegic. TED CHAMBERLAIN: She was blaming
the army where he was working,
00:20:01
water purification school that
he had got into the arsenic and he probably ate some of it.
00:20:09
So that's the way it went. DEBBIE SALAMONE: Because
of his loss of mobility, he was not able to return to
his career in the military.
00:20:17
And for Michael, this
was just very depressing. Here he is now unable to pursue
his career, unable to move,
00:20:25
and he's a young
man with the rest of his life in front of him. It was very, very sad.
00:20:32
GARY PRINTY: Judy contacted
the military and said, they're going to have to
honorably discharge him.
00:20:39
And so if you would
discharge him to me, we will retrofit our
house to take care of him
00:20:46
in his disabled condition. TED CHAMBERLAIN: Michael ended
up wearing braces on his legs,
00:20:52
a brace, he had robin wings. All the weights that
Michael had on him so we could try and walk
a little bit with canes
00:21:00
and all this, it was a
little over 50 pounds. NARRATOR: The military
agreed to discharge
00:21:06
Michael into his mother's care. GARY PRINTY: She
drove down to Tampa, picked him up at the airport,
drove back to Pensacola.
00:21:17
And by that afternoon, they
were out on a canoe trip. NARRATOR: Buenoano left her
daughter Kimberly fishing
00:21:24
on the riverbank and prepared
the canoe for herself, James, and Michael. TED CHAMBERLAIN:
And she puts them
00:21:31
in the middle of a canoe
with the weights on his legs, the weights on his
arm, and he's sitting
00:21:38
in a lawn chair, a small
lawn chair, beach lawn chair. And she puts the lawn
chair in the canoe
00:21:45
and puts him on the lawn chair. DEBBIE SALAMONE: It
was a beautiful day, and Judy wanted to treat
her family to a nice time.
00:21:52
So they canoed out onto this
lake and all of a sudden, something happened and
the canoe tipped over.
00:21:59
And now both Michael and
James are in the water. And Judy tried to hurry
to get over to grab
00:22:08
young James to save him. But she said she
didn't have time to get to Michael, who drowned
because of his heavy braces.
00:22:17
He went right down to
the bottom of the water. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Simply
a natural tragedy.
00:22:25
Who is going to
suspect for a second that Judy might have
organized the drowning?
00:22:33
GARY PRINTY: The army came and
investigated it because Michael had been in the military.
00:22:39
And they investigated. I believe she told
them a snake had fallen into the canoe from
an overhanging tree
00:22:47
and in the excitement,
it capsized. GEOFFREY WANSELL: I
mean, imagine that. You have deliberately tipped
up a canoe in the middle
00:22:55
of a river knowing that
your son, your son, cannot swim to
the shore, whereas you can and your other son can.
00:23:04
It is the most
callous, dramatic, ugly way of killing anybody. NARRATOR: Judy Buenoano had
got away with her third murder.
00:23:16
For now. May 13, 1980. Pensacola, Florida. 18-year-old Michael Buenoano
had drowned in what appeared
00:23:29
to be a tragic accident. But it wasn't long before
his mother Judy cashed in. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
The relentless nature
00:23:38
of the killings, one
on top of the other, of people to whom she
should have been grateful,
00:23:45
that makes it exceptional. There was no reason
for these three people to lose their lives.
00:23:51
And of course, Michael was
insured by the military as well as by Judy. GARY PRINTY: There had been
about six insurance policies
00:24:00
that she had taken out. These were kind
of small policies, $15,000, $20,000 policies.
00:24:06
There was one that was taken
out when he was a child. Well, she had contacted
the insurance company
00:24:12
and because it had lapsed, and
so she reactivated the policy by paying some premiums.
00:24:19
And so there was I
believe about $120,000 in life insurance benefits that
she received from that one.
00:24:27
She had to believe
that in her mind no one is ever going
to figure this out. I have totally fooled
all these idiots.
00:24:38
I mean, she must have had
contempt for the investigators, because I am telling
you this stuff
00:24:46
and you're believing
everything I say. DEBBIE SALAMONE: Judy spent
the money on vacations, cars,
00:24:54
opening a beauty salon
called Fingers and Faces and basically just lived
a really nice life.
00:25:03
NARRATOR: In February
1981, nine months after the death of
her son, Judy Buenoano
00:25:09
met 35-year-old Army veteran
and local business owner John Gentry. John had two sons from
a former marriage.
00:25:19
FRANK GENTRY: He was very tall. I think he was like
6' 2'' or 6' 3''. Handsome, broad
shoulders, easygoing.
00:25:29
The kind of person
that when you met him, you knew to respect him. I'd never seen him
get out of line
00:25:37
or get angry or raise his voice. He was just that kind of person. When you looked at him,
he commanded respect.
00:25:45
I guess that's the
best way to put it. NARRATOR: John's
business specialized in carpet and flooring tiles.
00:25:55
FRANK GENTRY: He had a
huge store in Pensacola. It was really successful. He had several people
working on the under him.
00:26:03
He looked really
good in a uniform. And one time he told us
that he was in Vietnam,
00:26:09
so he would joke about it, and
he was in Vietnam for three days because he
stepped on a landmine
00:26:14
and he was actually
blown up in Vietnam. And of course, he
recovered from that. The only injuries
he sustained was he
00:26:24
lost hearing in one ear
and a bunch of scars. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
And they seem to have
00:26:30
quite a good relationship. Judy really did like
living the high life at this particular
point in time.
00:26:36
So they went on
cruises, they ate out at expensive restaurants. She really liked it when he
bought her expensive clothes.
00:26:43
So this appears to be quite
a successful relationship. NARRATOR: In August
1981, John moved
00:26:55
into the house in Gulf
Breeze to live with Buenoano and her two children. The first time we met Judy,
we were excited to meet her,
00:27:05
obviously. He spoke a lot about her
being beautiful, intelligent, well off. I liked her.
00:27:12
I liked her. She was nice. She took us to Disney. She was attractive. She had a great personality.
00:27:21
It seemed like she was rich. She had a nice house. She had a boat, car,
exclusive community.
00:27:29
She was generous. Also the house was very
clean, nicely decorated. They were affectionate,
but they weren't
00:27:37
into kissy feely public show
of affection kind of thing. I don't know what they were
like when we were not around.
00:27:47
But as far as a couple,
they would sit together, hold hands, hug, kiss, but not
constantly all over each other.
00:27:57
We were children, so
maybe they were behaving. GARY PRINTY: Meanwhile Judy had
been spreading various rumors
00:28:04
about Mr. Gentry to her friends
that, well, he seems to be involved with some
shady characters,
00:28:10
maybe some organized
crime connections, or on the other hand,
he has bad health.
00:28:17
And he did appear to have bad
health because Judy had been slipping him some
capsules containing
00:28:26
paraformaldehyde and arsenic. These weren't
enough to kill him, but it was causing him to
always feel sick all the time.
00:28:39
FRANK GENTRY: As
far as I know, he knew there was an
insurance policy on him, but he was under the impression
that she had for some reason
00:28:48
or another canceled the policy. But it turns out that she
didn't cancel the policy.
00:28:55
It was still active. But my father was
unaware that she still had the policy on him.
00:29:01
NARRATOR: After less
than two years together, 40-year-old Buenoano
had some news for John.
00:29:07
GARY PRINTY: Judy announced
to him that she was pregnant. And so, oh, now they are
going to get married.
00:29:14
Well, unbeknownst
to Mr. Gentry, Judy had previously had
a tubal ligation and was not capable
of getting pregnant.
00:29:24
But he did not know that. So he thought, wow, great,
I'm going to be a father. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: On
the 25th of June, 1983,
00:29:34
Judy had arranged a party
because one of her members of staff was leaving. She had a whole range of beauty
salons in the local area.
00:29:43
And she'd arranged for
this meal as a leaving do for one of her staff
members at the restaurant.
00:29:49
Now, she wanted John to
go along to the restaurant to help set up the party. TED CHAMBERLAIN: She
told him where to put
00:29:57
his vehicle in a parking lot. She said this is
where you need to park your vehicle, right here.
00:30:03
He said OK. So he parked it right there
in that lot where she said. NARRATOR: Buenoano
arrived at the restaurant
00:30:10
some time after John. She's driving a
brand new Corvette. She parks it two blocks
away in front of this motel.
00:30:19
NARRATOR: As the
party wrapped up, Buenoano encouraged John
to leave without her.
00:30:25
TED CHAMBERLAIN: She
walked him to the door and she told Gentry, she
said, look, I'm going to stay
00:30:30
here for a little while longer. What I want you to do is
get a bottle of champagne
00:30:35
and go on home and wait for
me there and we'll celebrate, her having a baby and all
this other stuff, she said.
00:30:42
DEBBIE SALAMONE: John
walks out to his car, gets in, starts the
automobile, and kaboom.
00:30:49
The whole thing explodes. Here's this car bomb in
sleepy Pensacola, Florida. This is not an ordinary event.
00:31:00
TED CHAMBERLAIN: When
the thing explodes, Judy comes out of the restaurant
and the people follow her.
00:31:06
And she sees the car blown up,
so she goes into having a fit and falls on the
ground and pretends
00:31:13
she's having a seizure. NARRATOR: Judy Buenoano had
just made a fatal mistake. June 25, 1983.
00:31:27
Pensacola, Florida. John Gentry had been
catapulted out of his vehicle by a homemade bomb
primed to explode
00:31:37
as he turned on his headlights. GARY PRINTY: He's
blown out of the car. I always saw one of the great
things in this explosion
00:31:45
was his shoes remained on
the floorboard of the car. He was literally blown
out of his shoes.
00:31:51
But he survives. TED CHAMBERLAIN: Of course,
all the agencies was called. ATF was there.
00:31:59
Pensacola PD was
there and everything. And it was a real
mess at the time. They did what they could
because at that time of night,
00:32:08
we really couldn't get too much. Mr. Gentry, he was
sent to the hospital. The vehicle was eventually
moved to the Pensacola PD.
00:32:16
It was put in the lot. And actually the
next morning is when everything really got started.
00:32:22
DEBBIE SALAMONE: The
fact that John survived must have really come
as quite a shock to Judy
00:32:27
and probably shook her deeply. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Judy has failed to kill her victim in this case.
00:32:34
And I think she feels incredibly
frustrated about this, because the person that she's
tried to murder has survived.
00:32:41
And not only has he survived,
he is now a piece of evidence. He has lots of
information that he's
00:32:47
able to share with the police. GARY PRINTY: I'm sure her world
must have just been in a panic
00:32:54
to find out that all the
stories that she'd been telling about him, the lies about her
being able to have children,
00:33:06
that she was pregnant
with his child, all that was going
to come to roost like, well, what happened
to our child that's
00:33:15
going to be born in six or
seven months or whatever? Because she was a great planner,
and you just don't plan on
00:33:23
somebody surviving a car bomb. FRANK GENTRY: My uncle called
us and explained what happened
00:33:30
and we were in shock. And he was in his
recovery in the hospital. I mean, it's like something
you hear out of a movie.
00:33:39
I mean, to put a bomb in
his car, who does that? TED CHAMBERLAIN: He had a
lot of damage done to him.
00:33:47
So we knew it would be another
couple of days or a day or so before we
could get to him.
00:33:52
At the very beginning, she was
telling us that Mr. Gentry was getting these notes
that were threatening
00:33:59
notes that were left on
the windshield of his car. He was getting these
phone calls and hang ups
00:34:05
and threatening him. And so we checked in
all to that and that turned out to be nothing.
00:34:11
And then talking to her
friends, before the car blew up, she told everybody
that Gentry had cancer
00:34:22
and he was dying of cancer. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
I think that Judy thought she was really smart.
00:34:28
I don't think she
believed that anybody would ever join up the dots. And she did quite a
good job of wiping
00:34:34
the slate clean as she
moved from one life into the next one. So I think she honestly
did feel like she was being
00:34:40
reborn time and
time again when she was building these new lives. GEOFFREY WANSELL: It's fair
to say that if she had been
00:34:50
able to contain
herself, she might never ever have faced justice. But greed overcame her.
00:35:01
If she had not decided
to blow up Gentry, it's entirely possible that
the authorities would never
00:35:08
have looked back at the
killings of Bobby Joe Morris, the killing of Michael, or
the killing of James Goodyear.
00:35:16
They were to some extent in
the past, defined as accidents, tragic nevertheless,
but still accidents.
00:35:25
It was only her
decision to blow up Gentry that was eventually
to bring her to the attention
00:35:33
of the authorities. Because Gentry recovering
from his injuries starts to tell them
about the pills,
00:35:40
about the other things
that have happened. TED CHAMBERLAIN: He
said, I don't know,
00:35:46
he said that Judy was
giving me these pills and it was a vitamin pill. And she said for me
to take them every day
00:35:53
and it would help me out
and I'd feel a lot better. So I was taking these pills.
00:35:58
He said, then I
quit taking them. And after I quit taking them,
I didn't get sick anymore.
00:36:04
I was fine. And he said, then
I took him again and he said I got sick again. I said, where are they?
00:36:10
And he said they
was at his office. So we went down and
picked up those capsules
00:36:15
that we got from him. And we sent them off to the lab. And sure enough,
what was happening,
00:36:21
the Vicon-C capsules,
somebody had taken them apart and put paraformaldehyde
inside them
00:36:28
and put them back together here. GEOFFREY WANSELL: There's
no question that Judy chose
00:36:33
her poison very carefully. Paraformaldehyde causes
deterioration of the organs but doesn't do it quickly.
00:36:43
TED CHAMBERLAIN: So
when it came back, yes, paraformaldehyde,
well boom, that was class III poison.
00:36:49
That hit us right off the bat. That was enough to go
ahead and get a warrant. Because we could place
Judy with the pills
00:36:55
at her house for
the search warrant. We've got Gentry saying she
physically gave him the pills.
00:37:01
He knows that. That was a big plus. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I
think in the beginning when John is finding
out all of these details
00:37:09
about what Judy has been doing,
there's this incredulity there. He can't believe this.
00:37:15
This is the woman that he's in
an intimate relationship with. But I think as the evidence
becomes more and more
00:37:20
compelling, it does dawn
on him that this woman meant him serious harm. NARRATOR: John was then
informed that the life
00:37:29
insurance policy he thought
Buenoano had canceled was still active. GARY PRINTY: And that's
where this whole thing came
00:37:38
unraveled, because she had her
half million dollar insurance policy that she was
going to cash in on.
00:37:46
She had already booked a 180
day around the world cruise for her and her two
kids but not for John
00:37:57
Gentry, her husband to be. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: That
completely blows open all of Judy's life, all
of her previous offending,
00:38:05
all of the times when she's
killed other people before. And I think had that
murder not failed,
00:38:12
she could have gone on for
quite some time afterwards. But I think she
was getting quite
00:38:16
close to being
caught at this stage, because she was
becoming quite careless. She was trying to mix things up.
00:38:23
She was trying to be
too clever, and that's what led to her downfall. GARY PRINTY: They
began exhuming bodies.
00:38:30
They exhumed James
Goodyear's body. Lethal dose of
arsenic in the system. She wanted to make
sure that she did
00:38:42
the job right with her
husband, James Goodyear. And so the amount of
arsenic in his system
00:38:50
when he was examined after
they exhumed the body was enough to kill 15 people. We had investigators from
Colorado come down to here.
00:39:02
Bobby Joe was buried in
a cemetery in Alabama. And we had that body exhumed. We did tests on him
and he had enough
00:39:11
in him for about 10 people,
to kill 10 people, arsenic. GARY PRINTY: They exhumed
the body of Michael Goodyear,
00:39:23
find out that there's lethal
doses of arsenic in his system. It was the arsenic
poisoning that crippled
00:39:30
him but did not kill him. And with that, they
began mounting the cases. NARRATOR: On July 27,
1983, Judy Buenoano
00:39:44
was arrested and charged
with the attempted murder of her third
partner, John Gentry.
00:39:50
After being released on bail,
she was arrested once more in January 1984, this
time for grand theft
00:39:58
and the murder of
her son, Michael. Buenoano claimed to be
innocent of all charges.
00:40:05
The trial on her son, the
drowning, she was very vocal. She even took the stand.
00:40:12
She really thought that
she could get away with it. She really did. She really thought that
she would be able to talk
00:40:16
her way out of these things. NARRATOR: The jury didn't
believe Buenoano's lies, and she was found
guilty on all counts.
00:40:25
She was sentenced to
life without parole. DEBBIE SALAMONE: It
was a standout case
00:40:30
because it was almost
unbelievable that a person could do this to their loved
ones, particularly a child
00:40:41
that she gave birth to. It's just unfathomable. NARRATOR: Later that same
year, Buenoano found herself
00:40:50
back on trial, charged
with the attempted murder of John Gentry. On October the 18, 1984,
she was found guilty
00:40:58
and sentenced to a further
12 years behind bars. FRANK GENTRY: Maybe my
father would have died
00:41:05
and maybe she would have
married again and killed again. I mean, with the number
of people that she killed,
00:41:13
she was obviously
didn't have a conscience and would probably
have done it again.
00:41:19
NARRATOR: Despite the sentences
already handed out to her, Buenoano would have to face
a third trial, this time
00:41:26
for the first degree murder
of her original partner, James Goodyear. Once again, she was found
guilty and her punishment
00:41:34
was even more severe. On November the 26th,
1985, Judy Buenoano was sentenced to death.
00:41:43
Judy's crimes were cold,
calculated, and premeditated. Those are the kinds of murders
in the state of Florida
00:41:50
that cry out for
the death penalty. The death penalty is designed
for people like Judy.
00:41:59
NARRATOR: On March 30,
1998, Judy Buenoano was executed via the electric
chair in Florida State Prison.
00:42:08
She was 54 years old. DEBBIE SALAMONE: At the
time of Judy's execution, it was quite a big event
in the state of Florida
00:42:16
because it had been
decades since a woman was sentenced to death. GARY PRINTY: She died without
ever saying anything at all,
00:42:28
apologizing, or
admitting anything. She took it all with her. And I can't imagine what she
was even thinking at the end.
00:42:44
Why are they doing this to me? I didn't do anything wrong. She really got
what she deserved.
00:42:52
I knew they were trying to say
when she was in jail that she had found this religion and that
religion that she was helping
00:43:01
and she'd gone to school and
got a degree in this and degree in that. That's all fine
and good, but you
00:43:08
got to look back at what she
did, especially to her own son. NARRATOR: Judy Buenoano was
a cold, calculating killer
00:43:16
who planned her murders
meticulously for years. She ruthlessly
destroyed the lives
00:43:21
of those who loved
and trusted her for her own selfish
financial gain, making Judy Buenoano one of
the world's most evil killers.
00:43:32
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