One Dessert From Murder

Dessert Blanche Taylor Moore Blanche Kiser was born February 17, 1933, in Concord, North Carolina. She was one of 7 children. Her mother’s name was Flonnie. Her father, P.D. Kiser, Sr., was a millworker and a preacher. Although she was raised in a strict southern Baptist home, Blanche’s upbringing was far from idyllic. Her father was an alcoholic, womanizer and gambler. Not only did she witness her father with other women, but she has said that her father would prostitute her to men to settle his gambling debts. Blanche left home at 19 and married James Napoleon Taylor in 1952. James was a furniture restorer and had served in the Korean War. She also went to college and received a business degree. She was the perfect southern wife, known for her sweet tea and banana pudding. She was very active in their church, taking food to the sick. Always quoting scripture. Blanche and James had their first daughter, Vanessa, a year after they were married in 1953. A year later she went to work as a cashier at a Kroger grocery store. She was very friendly and personable. Customers would choose to wait in her long line just to have Blanche check them out. In 1959 she was promoted to head cashier (which is said to be the same as what we now refer to as a customer service manager) which at the time was the highest-level position a woman could have at Kroger. That same year she gave birth to their 2nd daughter, Cynthia. Blanche was your stereotypical southern lady. Always impeccably dressed, very sweet to the point of flirtatious with other men, even with the ushers at church which they attended every Sunday morning. In fact, Cindy recalled an incident where an usher made a comment to her father saying something to the effect of “Your wife causes more arguments between the husbands and wives of this parish than anything else”. Cindy recalled this causing a huge argument for her parents later that day. Because was very different at home. She was quiet and reserved. According to her daughter, Cindy, her father was very loving and affectionate towards her mother, but her mother was not into displays of affection and would brush him off, even at home. Cindy had never known her grandfather, Blanche’s father. In 1960 (7 years after Blanche left home to get married) her mother, Flonnie, filed for divorce, stating in the divorce papers that P.D. had left her “to find himself a younger woman.” Then one day in 1966, P.D. came to their house unannounced. He spoke with Blanche and James for a bit in the living room and there was a bit of an argument, but Cindy couldn’t make out what was said. And then her grandfather left. She was never introduced to him, and her parents didn’t tell her anything about what was said. A few days later Cindy and Vanessa were told their grandfather had died of heart failure and he was never spoken of again. Blanche and James had been married 21 years when in 1973 he got sick. Cindy remembers her father having flu-like symptoms that went on for over a week. Blanche was caring for him, making his favorite foods to nurse him back to health. But on the morning of October 2nd, 1973 Cindy woke up to the sound of her father’s alarm clock going off. And it was going and going and he wasn’t turning it off. She heard Blanche go in the room and say “oh no” and she wouldn’t let Cindy into the room, but the door was cracked open and Cindy saw her father laying in bed peacefully with a line of blood coming from his mouth. It was determined that James Taylor died of a heart attack. He was only 45 years old. was very stoic at his funeral. Greeting everyone who came, being very polite. Blanche was 40 years old and a widow. Vanessa was 20 and Cindy was 14. Cindy was so upset by her father’s unexpected death that she couldn’t return to the house and went to stay with friends for almost 2 months. Cindy knew that first thanksgiving without her father was going to be a difficult one. She moved back home shortly before the holiday. She was annoyed to find that Blanche had invited her boss from Kroger, Raymond Reid, to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. Blanche told Cindy and her sister that Raymond was recently divorced so she asked him to join them. After that, Raymond was around more and more. Blanche was adamant that she and Raymond were just friends, but they saw each other daily. Turns out, Blanche and Raymond had started an affair in 1962 while working together at Kroger. It had been going on for the last 10 years of her marriage. It took a long time for Blanche to admit to her daughters that she and Raymond were dating. Eventually they made their relationship public. But they never married and the never lived together. Vanessa and Cindy stated that Raymond was a good man and treated them both very well. In 1985 when Blanche was 52, she went with a relative to an Easter sunrise service at the Carolina United Church of Christ. The pastor, the Rev. Dwight W. Moore, was also 52, recently divorced with 2 grown children. He was immediately smitten with Blanche. He began calling her and leaving notes on her door. She finally agreed to meet him for ice cream and soon began to attend church gatherings with him. At this point, she’s still in a relationship with Raymond Reid. A year later Raymond started getting sick. He was initially diagnosed with Shingles in April of 1986 and was hospitalized. Blanche was the doting girlfriend, visiting him daily and bringing him his favorite home-cooked foods. He was especially fond of her milkshakes and banana pudding. Raymond was in the hospital for 5 months and his health continued to decline. He died on October 7, 1986. He was only 50 years old. His cause of death was determined to be from Guillain–Barré (ghee-on bar-ray) syndrome. It’s an auto-immune disease that causes muscle weakness first in the limbs but eventually moving thru the body to the point it weakens breathing muscles and effects heart rate and blood pressure. The cause of the syndrome is unknown. Not long after, Blanche and Dwight began dating publicly. Her daughters thought Blanche was moving too fast. Dwight was very affectionate, very touchy-feeling and Cindy recalled thinking the relationship would never last. Blanche assured her they were just dating, nothing serious. Actually, they were talking of marriage, but Blanche was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987. And then Dwight developed an intestinal illness that was so severe he had 2 surgeries to attempt to correct it. On April 19, 1989, the Blanche and Dwight got married. Blanche only told her daughters the day before. The newlyweds drove up to New Jersey for a long honeymoon weekend. They plan was to take the scenic way home, but they had to cut the trip short Dwight got severely ill and collapsed after eating a fast-food chicken sandwich. Blanche drove them back to North Carolina as quickly as she could, Dwight laying in the back seat in agony. He was admitted to the local county hospital on April 28 with severe nausea and vomited. 2 days later he was transferred to North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill. His condition continued to deteriorate. He was at risk of multiple organ failure. and death. The cause of his illness was puzzling to doctors. Dwight told doctors that he had been working with an herbicide in the yard and so a heavy metals test was ordered. The toxicology report came back to show that Dwight had more than 20x (or 100x according to 2 sources) the lethal level of arsenic in his system. It was the highest level recorded in a living person. There was no way Dwight could have been exposed to this level of arsenic simply by working with an herbicide. Doctors contacted the police, who limited his visitation. Only Blanche could visit him and even that was supervised. Blanche was questioned by the SBI. The petite, well-dressed, polite, pastor’s wife was not a suspect, but she was asked who might want to kill her husband. Blanche told them that Dwight had been depressed lately and suggested that he might have been suicidal and purposely ingested the arsenic. This was a huge red flag, as for 1: Dwight had not given anyone else that impression, and 2: arsenic poisoning is an extremely painful way to die. Arsenic is odorless and colorless. Easily mixed with food. And it’s easy to purchase as it’s found in many ant killers and rat poisons. It’s difficult to diagnose arsenic poisoning if you don’t know what to look for. The symptoms mimic many other illnesses and viruses, usually starting with flu-like symptoms, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. You can get numbness in your hand and feet. But it also can be very painful as it causes blisters to form in your stomach and then the lining of your stomach is eaten away. They did a search of Blanche and Dwight’s house and found nothing containing arsenic in the home. It was also noticed that Dwight’s symptoms would come and go. He would begin to improve and then take a drastic turn. They ran another tox screening and found that his arsenic level had gone back up. Doctors notified the police who felt sure that not only had someone intentionally poisoned Dwight, but they were continuing to poison him. The police then called in the SBI (North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation), who banned anyone other than hospital staff from his room – even his wife. Dwight finally started to improve but he was still in a great deal of pain. He had no feeling in his hands and feet. He couldn’t sit up or keep any food down. investigators told him he had been poisoned. He was dumbfounded. He had no idea who would want him dead. Then they asked him to think of any other suspicious deaths. He told them that several years earlier his wife’s then boyfriend had gotten really sick, and doctors never knew the cause. Investigators immediately looked up Raymond Reid’s medical records. Turns out the symptoms of Guillain–Barré syndrome can mimic the symptoms of arsenic poisoning. On June 13, 1989, Raymond Reid’s body was exhumed and sent to the Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill, North Carolina - whose name was Dr. John Butts. Tissue and hair samples were taken. While awaiting the results, Raymond’s 2 sons from his previous marriage were interviewed. They described their father’s time in the hospital as a rollercoaster where he would improve and then get violently ill again. Coding several times. And Blanche was always there, caring for him, doting over him. Brining him his favorite foods. They knew their father’s girlfriend could be sweet on the outside but had a manipulative side. When Raymond died, she encouraged his family to decline an autopsy saying he’d been through so much already, it wouldn’t bring him back, he wouldn’t want to be cut up, he would want to rest in peace. And his family agreed. Raymond didn’t have a lot of money. He had a small pension, small amount of savings and a small insurance policy together totaling about $125 thousand. His sons were supposed to receive the money upon his death. But Blanche insisted she was entitled to some of it and it should be split 3 ways. She presented them with a typed document that Ray had signed saying that. His sons agreed to it. After all, she had been his girlfriend of 13 years officially, almost 24 if you count their affair. Then they get the results back from Raymond’s new autopsy. He had lethal levels of arsenic in his system - 30x what is considered normal - and his cause of death was changed to arsenic poisoning. Investigators then obtained the medical records of Blanche’s first husband, James Taylor. Again, his symptoms were consistent with possible arsenic poisoning, and they feared they were dealing with a Black Widow. So from the same cemetery, James Taylor’s body was exhumed. A new autopsy was performed, and a lethal dose of arsenic was found in James’ body as well – 60x what was considered normal. His cause of death was also changed to arsenic poisoning. On July 18, 1989, Blanche Taylor Moore was arrested and charged with 2 counts of 1st degree murder and 1 count of assault with a deadly weapon and held without bond. Her daughters, Vanessa and Cindy, were shocked and refused to believe their mother was capable of murder. Blanche insisted she was innocent. As they continued their investigation, authorities wondered if Blanche had other victims and looked at the medical records of 22 other people in her life that had died of unusual circumstances. Based on what was found in their medical records, they obtained court orders to exhume the 3 more bodies: her father, P.D. Kiser, Sr., her mother-in-law, Isla Taylor, and Joseph Mitchell, a former co-worker. All from the same cemetery. Blanche may have been more than a Black Widow; she could be a serial killer. Autopsies of her father and mother-in-law showed they both had higher than normal levels of arsenic, but they were not lethal. However, considering their ages when they died, arsenic poisoning could have contributed to their deaths. Joseph Mitchell’s autopsy didn’t reveal an unusual level of arsenic. But prosecutors only had circumstantial evidence because no one witnessed Blanche poison anyone. Ultimately, they decided to focus on charging Blanche with the murder of Raymond Reid and ask for the death penalty. They felt it was their strongest case to get a conviction. But in May of 1990 Blanche’s attorney calls the DA’s office with new information. He had just received a handwritten letter from someone else confessing to the murders. Garvin Thomas was a member of Blanche’s church. In the letter he claimed to have been in love with Blanche for years and that none of the 3 men were worthy of her. He confessed in detail to dressing like a chaplain, entering Raymond’s hospital room and spiking his water pitcher with arsenic. He admitted to doing the same thing to Dwight in the hospital. But upon investigating, detectives learned that Garvin Thomas had died 1 week before the letter was sent. The letter was sent for handwriting analysis, and it was determined that it matched Blanche’s handwriting. The media went wild with the story of the North Carolina Black Widow. Someone was selling t-shirt with an image of a Blanche Taylor Moore Cookbook featuring her banana pudding with ant poison. Someone wrote a song about her called “The Ballad of Blanche Moore.” In October 1990, just a few days before the trial started, Judge William Freeman ruled that the prosecution could introduce the arsenic poisonings of James Taylor, Dwight Moore and P.D. Kiser. The trial began October 21, 1990. Blanche was 57 years old. She was very Golden Girls looking with large hair and big glasses, and she was dressed in a very southern lady, Designing Women style. Her grown daughters were 36 & 30 and she had 3 grandchildren. They all supported her innocence. Lead prosecutor Janet Branch described to the jury the Raymond’s suffering to such an extent that she broke down in tears twice court. “Raymond Reid lay in Baptist Hospital flat on his back, bed sores on his back, completely unable to move, tears in his eyes on the days that this woman who was killing him doesn’t come.” “He’s crying because his murderer isn’t coming to see him! Can you imagine anything more pitiful in this whole world? And he loves her with all his heart. … But she’s running around on him, and she’s sleeping with Dwight Moore, and she’s going to that hospital.” The defense moved for a mistrial, but the judge overruled. No one witnessed Blanche poison Ray, but a number of nurses and other hospital staff testified to seeing her visit him daily and bring him food. Sometimes he ate it himself, sometimes she fed it to him, sometimes she instructed the nursing staff to feed it to him. There was also testimony that at one point she made a cake for the nurses as a thank you. All but 1 of those nurses became ill after eating the cake and the 1 that didn’t had been off that day. Dwight Moore – who was still married to Blanche – testified against her. He was still trying to recover from the poisoning. He never fully regained control of his limbs and his hands shook as he testified. It was obvious he was still having difficulty with the realization that his wife, this woman that he loved, was a serial killer who tried to kill him. But he testified that while she was dating Raymond and sneaking around with Dwight on the side, she asked him to buy arsenic-based ant killer for her. Blanche had also attempted to get Dwight’s to make her the sole beneficiary of pension, rather than his adult children. But the prosecution’s theory on Blanche’s motivation was not money. They proposed that she was not what she presented herself to be. She was evil. Blanche took the stand to testify in her own defense. She says that she believes arsenic was found in all of these people in her life, but that she was not responsible for how they were poisoned with it. She remained poised and stoic on the stand and it came off as arrogance. The defense tried to introduce Garvin Thomas as a possible suspect and create reasonable doubt. The trial lasted 5 weeks and on November 14, 1990 the jury found her guilty of 1st degree murder and recommended the death penalty. Her daughters were horrified and did not believe justice had been served. They fully expected her to be found innocent. Dwight filed for a divorce. On January 18, 1991, at sentencing the judge sentenced Blanche to die by lethal injection. Blanche has appealed her conviction 3x and has been denied every time. She is out of appeals. She is now 90 years old and the oldest female on death row. Although she still maintains her innocence, her daughters – at least Cindy – has come to accept her mother’s guilt. She appeared in both tv episodes I watched. She believes her mother’s testimony in court sealed her fate. In 1993, a book was published about the murders, called Preacher's Girl by Jim Schutze. Then there was made-for-TV movie based off the book, called ”Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Story” star Elizabeth Montgomery from “Bewitched” as Blanche. Dwight Moore, remarried and moved to Virginia. He died of natural causes in 2013. Sources: Snapped Southern Edition, Season 27, Episode 11 “Blanche Taylor Moore” Evil Lives Here, Season 3 Episode 4 “The Black Widow” LA Times .com Washington Times .com Wikipedia The Cinemaholic .com