Blanche Taylor Moore, The Oldest Woman on Death Row (Part 1)

Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash. I'm Elena. And this is morbid. This is morbid. Honey, it's morbid post-radio city. It is. We had a fucking blast. We did. It was amazing meeting you guys afterwards. It was so much fun. Yeah, meeting everybody afterwards was, you guys made me feel like Harry Styles. That's exactly what I felt like. Yeah, we were like the Beatles or something. It's true. It was so much fun. And my parents got to come. Mom and Papa had the best time. They did. They were beaming. Seeing Mom and New York, Mahan and Ben to New York City in like decades. Yeah. And had like the best time. We got to like do a really fun dinner afterwards with all of our friends. Like, my cup is full to the brim right now. Yeah. It truly is. It's time to get back. Yeah. I'm happy to get back to normal, see a little bit. I spent so much time planning that live show. I think the last weeks of our lives were spent just like going over every single detail. Yeah. To get it all perfect and now. And it was just like the production, everything. It was a bigger, it's such a big venue that it was such a bigger production. Mara production. Yeah. They are amazing. Sophie specifically. These truly, not cheese, cheese, truly. They were the sweetest people I think I've ever met in my life. And like took such good care of us, took such good care of the stage. And like just so much went into that. Yeah. So thank you to everybody who made that happen. And thank you to everybody who showed up to support us. It really means a lot to us. You guys rule. You do. But now it's time to get back to like our normal day today. Regular morbid schedule, we're back, we're home. Mercury is in Gatorade. And we saw something that said. Right. I should say. It wants you to slow down. I should say mercury is retrograde. I have to stop saying in retrograde as a student of astrology. It's retrograde. Because that's just saying mercury is in backwards. Yeah. It's in backwards, you know, but it's just. It is. It's just backward. It's in backwards right now. And it said, according to Alisa Kelly, who I trust. Oh, yeah. Alisa Kelly, she said it wants you to slow down. And I said, I'm going to take that to heart babe because I'm like a missile right now. And I, I need to slow down. Frankly, I'd like to slow down. Truly mom is tired. Truly mom is tired. I'm exhausted. Am I asthma is flaring up again? My asthma is humidity. It said flare up flare up. Give that bitch the mucus in her throat and a cough. That's what it said now. I don't know. You said a like Donald Trump. Oh. I've never been more insulted in my life. Wow. It sounded like a yucky. How do we move away from that anyway? Anything else here? Do you want me to, should we just get right into the story? I actually, we probably should because I do have a long one today. Yeah, let's go. And I know like Jeffrey has his timer out. So exactly. We're gonna start. We have a two-parter. This is obviously part one. Welcome. So we're going to be talking about Blanche Taylor Moore. And Blanche Taylor Moore is spoiler alert. Just to really start you off to know what you're getting into. The oldest woman on death row. Oh, that's what we're getting into. Okay. Yeah. All right. That's where we're headed. Let's go. Before she headed to death row. She was born on February 17th, 1933. In Concord, North Carolina. She was the fifth of seven children born to Parker, PD, Kaiser. And his wife, Flawny. Okay. I'm obsessed with that. Okay, Flawny. Okay, Flawny, Flawny. All right. Now technically, PD, the dad was a mill worker. But his real passion was preaching the gospel. Okay, preaching the gospel. PD proudly fell into the category of primitive preachers. Which was kind of a group of untrained, definitely unpaid, optist preachers who traveled around to rural locations, like campgrounds to preach. Which only makes me think of true detective season one. Yes, absolutely. Like 10 revivals. What an iconic season of television. True detective is so good. I love season one. Truly. Now, according to author Jim Schutz, who we will link in the show notes and who we have used before, a great author. PD preached an intense benotonous sing song, literal interpretation of the Bible. Oh, okay. I really know exactly what that means. It's a lot. It's a lot. It felt like a lot. He always seemed to find a way to make money, which was a good thing. Yeah, all right. He was working or he got donations. Always be closing. But he rarely used that money on his own family. The work of raising children and paying the bills basically just fell completely on Flawny, who worked full time to just make do, basically. But I almost just set a head over their roofs, a roof over their heads. No of the 40 or so dollars a week that she made, she always gave half of that to her husband, who, according to Schutz, never made any secret of the fact that he was spending it all on young girls. Oh. Yeah, so that wasn't awesome. That was terrible. Now, in 1942, when Flawny was only nine years old, the family moved to Burlington. Burlington did offer better job prospects, but the real reason for the move was probably because PD couldn't manage to stay employed for very long, and he kind of just ran out of options for employment and conquered. Now, despite his own perclivity for sex workers and gambling and drinking and generally not spending time with his own young family, he was very, very strict on his own children when he was around. And he had, I don't even want to call them high standards because it's the impossible standards. The family didn't have much flowing in, so the girls were like, no, I don't know. The family didn't have much flowing in, so the girls were usually dressed in tattered rags and hand-me-downs, essentially, but he would routinely inspect their outfits to make sure that they were, quote unquote, sufficiently modest. Come on. Which is also nice. Come on, guys. You're the biggest hypocrite ever. Yeah, you gotta make sure. You just have to be sure that everybody is modest, even though you're clearly not. Modesty is the most important thing, so important, yeah. Now, the high standards didn't just end with what the kids looked like, what they were wearing, their appearances, they also were completely forbidden from participating in any after-school activities. That's so fucked up. That actually pisses me off. Truly, truly a lot. Like, what good does that do? They couldn't socialize with their friends. They couldn't join a club, nothing like that. They had to come to me right home from school and probably pray. That's fucked up. When Blanche reached early teens, she was finally given enough freedom to get a job in one of the local shops downtown, probably because they needed more money, or less about her happiness. But more time outside of the house also meant that she was able to socialize a little bit. And when she was about 15 or 16, she started dating a boy named James Taylor. No, it's not that one. Thank you. I said of Tanglewood. Not of Tanglewood fame. Not of Sweet Baby James. Not Sweet Baby James. So heavy with that James Taylor though. James Taylor, like our James Taylor, like collectively all of our James Taylor. He is the most soothing voice. He's the voice of a generation. He is. I feel he's the voice of many generations. I think he is too. You hear a James Taylor song like a specific one that you just heard. He just hear that beginning of the talk. It does. To be honest, my nervous system has been a little light lately. Yeah. I'm going to listen to a James Taylor song. And I bet I'm going to feel right as rain. You probably shouldn't, I think you will. I will, period. Thank you for that. You bet. So she met James Taylor. Not V, but A. A James Taylor. In a lot of ways, James and Blanche did seem like a really good fit for each other. In public, he was a good Christian boy. He doded on his mama. He did well in school. But in private, he loved a cross-joke and a cold beer. So he had two sides to him. Yeah. Within a few weeks of starting their relationship, James introduced Blanche to his family, which was kind of a revelation for her. Because she knew most people came from stable and happy homes. But she had never seen one up close or experienced one. That's so sad. It is really sad. But the cool thing was that in the beginning of their relationship, she kind of like enmeshed in this family and they loved her. And they supported her and she like got her cup filled that way. Now, by that time, she had actually quit school. And was just always looking for a good reason not to be home at her house. So she spent a lot of time at the Taylor House. And apparently, her and James' mom, Ila, were very close. When it came to James' relationship with Blanche, I told you the good things about him. But it was also hard not to see the similarities between her boyfriend James and her father. James wasn't dismissive. He wasn't controlling not in the way that her dad was. But he was a drinker and he did love to gamble. And he was also at times, according to shoots, sentimental childish and given to eruptions of a violent temper. That's not great. He had very good facets of his personality. But he had flaws. And a lot of flaws. Some real flaws. As we all do, but he really needed to figure out how to reign those things. Start becoming violent. And when they start messing with someone else, affecting someone else. Those are flaws you got to take care of. That's the thing. So not long after the outbreak of a Korean war in 1950, James was drafted and he was sent to the Pacific to serve in the Army. He returned a year later to Burlington. was to Blanche and they got married on May 29th, 1952. At the same time, he found work restoring and refinishing fine furniture, which I feel like would be such a fun job. - Yeah. - I love furniture videos on TikTok. - Yeah, I feel like that would be very fulfilling. - Yeah, and like that started. - At the same time. - Yeah. - He was really, really good at the job, but the income was modest. It really was barely enough to cover the bills of two people. So when Blanche gave birth to their daughter in 1953, the family really started to struggle financially. But never went to shy away from hard work. Soon after her daughter was born, Blanche got a job as a checkout clerk at the local Kroger grocery store and she was an immediate hit with all of the customers. - Okay. - Former coworker Brenda Green told her reporter in 1989. She was always pleasant, always outgoing to the customers. And she wasn't just a hit with the customers. She was really popular with the men. - Oh, I mean, a way about her. - Her name's Blanche. - I know, it just comes with the territory. - It does. - Other she'd said men lined up behind her register just so they could look at her. - She's saying. - She's saying to each one in her busy little chittering bird voice, always with some expression of concern for their personal affairs. - Wow. - So she was a little bit of a flit. - I was gonna say, she was kind of, she was digging it. - Yeah, she was doing her thing. - I know nothing about this case by the way. - So well, she's the oldest woman on death row, so. - So there's that. - So like I can go with that. - Keep that with you. - Yeah. - So at that time, the roles for Kroger employees were strictly segregated. Women filled the customer service jobs in the front of the store, men worked the management, the stockroom, butcher roles in the back. - Okay. - Now, given the hierarchy, the highest that a female employee at Kroger could generally expect to make, like the highest position was head cashier. - Okay. - It was kind of like a front and manager position. They were like responsible for supervising the cashiers and the bag boys, just keeping everything in check. We've seen 'em. - Yeah. - Now that was the job we love 'em. - We've seen 'em, we love 'em, yeah. - That was the job that Blanche was really determined to get. And once she set her mind to something, she did usually achieve it. Now I said that. The customers loved her. - Co-workers? - Not so much. - E. - And more importantly, she'd seem to get along with people pretty fine, you know? - Yeah. - But a lot of her co-workers didn't like the way that she played obvious office politics. - Oh. - And they saw that she was very clearly intent on climbing the ladder to get that head cashier position. - Which, like, that's bound to happen. And then any kind of corporate or, you know, any retail environment. - Well, and people are all vying for the same job. So that it kind of creates like a, it's competitive. - Not a great environment. - Yeah. - But that wasn't just it. Some of the cashier suspected that Blanche was stealing from the company. - Oh, that's not good. - According to Shudz, Blanche had a penchant for using loaner registers and for moving around using other checker's drawers, rather than following the safe and share procedures designed so that each cashier would check out on a register that was entirely her own responsibility for each shift. - Eek. - She just kind of floated amongst them. - Yeah. Now despite the rumors of her embezzling small sums of money, by 1959 Blanche did work her way up at Kroger and she got that head cashier position. - Oh yeah, she got it. - And the promotion couldn't have come at a better time because just a few months after she moved up, she gave birth to the couple's second daughter. So the extra income was an asset. - Oh, hey. You know, it seemed things were going pretty good for Blanche in 1927. - Seems like it. - Yeah. But her personal life was starting to unravel a bit. That same year, her mother, Flony, filed for divorce from PD, citing her husband's abandonment as the reason. PD Kaiser had basically left his wife and children a few years earlier to quote, "Find himself a yoga woman." Oh, excuse you. - And he also didn't contribute a dime to the support of their children since he left them. And now, even though all of that is true, that he was just a prick at the time going through a divorce would have been a pretty shameful experience, which is silly, but it just was. And sharing the details of her failed marriage in such a public form wouldn't just be embarrassing, but humiliating not just for Flony, but also for the children, like Blanche, even like the adult children. Now luckily, the judge was sympathetic and ordered PD to pay $25 a week in child support, which was dropped then to $10 a week the following year. And to everyone's surprise, though, he did pay the support. Huh, yeah, so that is interesting. I didn't see that coming. At least he paid it, you know, the bare minimum. But the public dissolution of her parents' marriage, which became then a big source of gossip in this small town, was kind of a source of shame for Blanche. And on top of that, things in her own marriage weren't really going very well. After the birth of her second baby, she wasn't really interested in being with James romanticly. And since getting married, in her view, he had changed quite a bit physically, and she just wasn't feeling very attracted to him. Oh, okay. In addition, the gambling and the drinking that when he was younger made him seem wild and fun and carefree, now made him seem irresponsible and reckless and probably reminded her of her father. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Now, even though he knew he was being judged, it didn't really seem like he gave a shit at this time. James kept drinking, he kept gambling. And he also had picked up a new hobby since he got back from Korea and just spent a lot of his weekends editing tape recordings of sermons from the Glen Hope Baptist Church, so that the tapes could be sent overseas for missionary work, which like, cool. You're getting a little extra cash by doing that, but you're also spending all your time away from your family by working gambling and drinking. Yeah, it's like a couple of those things could go. Right, you know, like work for sure. Keep that gambling and drinking. If it's affecting you negatively, you gotta stop. Maybe cut that back, kind of back. Yeah. Now, so by 1962, the distance between James and Blanche had become so evident that even strangers would have felt the tension between them. It wasn't just a lack of physical intimacy or the fact that he was just never home, but Blanche also found other ways to spend her time in the absence of her husband. Oh boy. That year, she started in a fair with her boss, right back then. Yeah. And she barely tried to hide it not only from her husband, but like from anyone. Yeah, she doesn't give a fuck. She really didn't give a single talk. That doesn't shock me. One theme of this story that you'll find is that Blanche does not give a fuck. A fucks are no way to be found. No, her fuck basket is barren. And that's on it a lot worse than I meant for two. But you can leave it in. So before long, the tension over Blanche's obvious affair escalated to verbal abuse and occasionally physical abuse from her husband. Like the night that James and Blanche argued over her relationship and he just started flinging spoonfuls of chocolate pudding at her in a mean way. I know that sounds silly. It does, but it's like it's mean. When you really think of that, I want you to picture that. That's weird. They're trying to like that. Having a serious conversation. Yeah, like that's fucked up. Flinging pudding at her. Also so childish. He was quite childish. Wow. Yeah, wow. Despite their troubles and Blanche's ongoing affair, which he didn't give a fuck about, they kind of tried to keep up appearances as a happy couple, even though it was blatantly obvious to everyone that Blanche was having an affair. But in the early 1960s, James did decide to slow his drinking and he cut off all contact with his gambling circle and he joined a church and found new friends there. Blanche continued to work at Kroger and she also filled a lot of her free time by selling Tupperware, which was such a thing. My god, Tupperware parties. Yeah, that was like a real thing. I've always heard of them, but just buy Tupperware. I kind of want to go to a Tupperware party because one thing about me is I make people food and then I lose my Tupperware. That's the thing. When I think of Tupperware parties, I'm like, not a bad idea because I can always use more Tupperware. Should we start Tupperware parties again? Maybe we should have a Tupperware party. Do you feel like the word Tupperware is losing all meaning? Tupperware. Say Tupperware again. Tupperware. I want to say it again. Tupperware. Sorry, I can't stop. So yeah, we should have those parties again. I think so too. So she just randomly started doing that. And it seemed like she was a powerhouse salesperson because she routinely filled her nights with those parties and other events. But what James thought was his wife's satisfying side job was in fact a cover story that allowed her to keep her nights free to spend with her boss Raymond who she was sleeping with and other men in town who she was also sleeping with. Fuck, Blanche. Yeah. She kind of seemed to have a growing obsession with sex and it was obvious to anybody who spent any time with her. At work, she was relentlessly flirty. Not just with her boss Raymond, but with any man she found attractive and she found a lot of men attractive. According to shoots, this is wild. She might be mid-sentence talking about Jesus in the Bible and she would stop and mutter to a coworker. Man, I'd like to see the dick on that guy. At no part of that, did I know where it was going? But then we got there. I had no part of that. Even at the end. She said, what the fuck? Imagine. I never had someone say that to me or in my presence. I don't think I have you. No, I've never heard somebody say that. (laughs) Man, I'd love to see the dick on that guy. Wow, what do you say? It's very Samantha Jones, I guess. It is very Samantha Jones. I feel like you just have to be like, okay. Woo-ee. Blanche. I bet, I bet. Yeah. That's what, like what do you need? Go for it. Yeah. That works out for you. Awesome. Period. Hey. So honestly, period to me is like the best response 'cause you have to put an end on that sentence. - Yeah, just period. - Period, lunch. (upbeat music) - So she grew more promiscuous, more reckless. And as she was doing that, James actually seemed to finally grow into adulthood. Oh, yeah, look at this. His drinking and gambling was pretty much under control at that point. And he actually started spending more time with his kids. And at this point in time, found that he genuinely loved being a father. - Wow, like took him a minute. - Kind of did 180 here. - Okay, took him a minute at least two dogs there. - Exactly. Now when he wasn't doting on his daughters, he could easily be found spoiling his nieces and nephews, especially his sister, dots children, because their father had died a few years earlier in a drowning accident. - Oh, jeez. - So he was really trying to fill that role too. - Hmm. - The happier James became though, the more frustrated and disgruntled blanche became. - Which shouldn't be the case. No, when your husband's exceeding, like you're supposed to be really happy about that and vice versa. - Your husband or wife or partner is thriving. That should make you feel like, oh hell yeah. - Yeah, like part of marriage is celebrating each other's wins. - Yeah. - But no matter the circumstances, she criticized his every move. She constantly commented on his appearance, which included a lot of fat shaming. - Oh. - Which is like really shitty mean. And if she wasn't complaining about how much money he was spending on his hobbies or on the kids, she was criticizing him like I said, for how much weight that he had put on since they got married. - That's just mean, man. - I'd like to point out, sometimes there's a sign of happiness, okay? - It's too comfortable in here, exactly. Now at the same time, James is family who had once been very kind and welcoming to blanche, remember. - But they're probably like, what the fuck? - That's the thing. They started to grow cold and distant around there because it wasn't any secret that she was cheating on him. - Yeah, not only is she cheating, but she's also bullying him while he's being a good dad and humiliating him when he's made these like life changes. - She's like changes that it seemed like she wanted him to make. - That's a thing. - Not everybody makes those changes or grows like that. - And here's the thing, like sometimes it is too late for you to make it up to another person. - Yeah. - If you want them to want to be along for the ride with you, go and do these changes and that's okay. - That's okay, but you just get divorced. - Yeah, you don't bully them. - No, like you just, you say, okay, this is a world that you're doing this, but it's past the point of being repaired. - I'm glad you made those changes, but you're gonna make them without me. - It's too far gone and I hope you keep it up. - Yeah. - So yeah, his family was just like, you know what? We really don't like you anymore. - Yeah, don't blame him. - So by the mid '60s her world was rapidly changing and it doesn't really sound like for the better. For somebody who craved and seemed to require control to feel a sense of stability at least one point, the ongoing upset at home was becoming unbearable for her. So in September of 1966, Blanche experienced one of the more defining moments of her life when her father PD passed away. - Oh. - This is interesting, and that's all I can say, it's allegedly pretty interesting. - Okay. - According to the coroner, the cause of death was a heart attack brought on by chronic emphysema. The death didn't come as a big surprise to really anybody who knew him because PD had been a pretty much a lifelong smoker and he had always been pretty reckless when it came to his health. And he also led a kind of nomadic existence. He just moved from one town to another. So there wasn't a real consistent record of his health care to speak of. - Okay. - I think that, you know, raised some eyebrows later. - Yeah. - Now if anybody had been playing close attention to his symptoms just before his death, the cause of death might have been diagnosed to something altogether different. He ended the hospital the day before he died, complaining of chest and stomach pains, and he was admitted and moved to a room. Over the course of the next 30 hours or so, though, he experienced a range of symptoms, most of which were internal. That included paralysis in the limbs, painful irritation of the nose and throat, aggressive bloating, and a burning sensation in his hands and feet among other things. - What? - Also, if somebody had been at his bedside when he died or immediately after, they maybe would have noticed just strong scent of garlic on his breath. - Oh. - Despite the fact that he hadn't been eating garlic. - And I don't know if you guys know this, but all of those signs are prominent telltale signs of arsenic poisoning. - Oh. - A rolled friend arsenic. - Yeah. Now, the problem was PD checked into a large, busy city hospital where he was obviously attended to, but it was periodically by nurses and doctors. There was nobody there who was consistently monitoring his symptoms. And even if they had suspected that his death wasn't natural, by the time of the autopsy, arsenic would have passed out of his system entirely. - Yeah. - So even if the corner had suspected arsenic poisoning, they might not have found any evidence of that to put on a toxicology report. Now, weirdly, Blanche didn't really seem moved by her father's death. You know, maybe that could have provided some insight to people in her life. - I think there would be something that you would at least be like, huh. - Yeah. - You know? - That's it. - Who's to say they had a tough relationship? - They did, that's a thing. They had a very complicated relationship. - So I see both sides. - And it's not like he was a warm fuzzy. - Yeah. And didn't allow them to have any kind of real life as they were growing up. So that could just be distance emotionally in that way. - And she also had a lot going on at home. - Yeah. - While PD was writhing in pain in the hospital, Blanche's marriage was rapidly deteriorating. By the late '60s, the one's private arguments between Blanche and James started to spill over into public spaces. And their neighbors became accustomed to not only hearing, but seeing the couple scream at each other in the front yard or driveway. And one particularly bad incident in 1969, neighbors watched in horror as they got into a shoving match one Sunday on their way to church. Oh. And what started as a verbal agreement quickly escalated to James trying to shove Blanche into the car. She immediately got out of the car and slammed the door behind her, but her coat was caught in the door when it shut. And he started backing down the driveway so she was pulled to the ground and dragged down the driveway on her knees until James finally stopped the car. - We were rooting for you. - We were all rooting for you. How dare you? - Yeah. - What? - And on your way to church. - On your way to church. - Are you going to confession too? - You're gonna sit in that pew and act like everything's fine? - Yeah. - The fuck? That's crazy. - That is crazy. - Holy shit. Now, James had always been a pretty easily excitable man, you know, he had gambled and drank in the past. - Yes. - He got hurried really quickly. But with all the tension in his marriage and the changing state of the world around them, the stress of life was starting to take a toll on him physically. And one afternoon in 1970, as he was driving into downtown Burlington, he was stopped by a police roadblock and told he couldn't go in the direction he was going because there was an active shooting situation. - Wow. - Now, obviously he immediately turned the car around and drove home. But the situation caused him such incredible anxiety that by the time he got home, he was shaking and sweating profusely. And then that turned into vomiting and violent diarrhea. - What? - So he finally went to see his doctor and was informed that he had had a fairly serious heart attack. Holy shit. And unless he wanted to experience another one, he needed to make some major changes in his life. - Yeah. - So the health scare marked a major turning point in his life. About six months later, Blanche came to her own major turning point too when Raymond Reed and his wife finally divorced. - Oh. - That's her boss that she was having a affair with. - James was still doing his best to raise their kids and avoid his blood pressure spiking. - Oh, she's crazy. - And Blanche was spending almost all of her free time with Raymond explaining to anyone who cared that she was just trying to help him out because he didn't have a wife anymore. - Oh yeah. - Just trying to stand in as his wife. - But at that point, they had been carrying on a pretty public affair for almost 10 years. - So people were like, "Are you guys serious?" - Yeah. - Are you for real? - That's the thing. - Be so serious right now. - The increased attention really didn't seem that unusual to anybody, not even to James. He fully knew that they were continuing their affair. Now, maybe it was because he was so accustomed to his wife's infidelity or maybe he was just trying to not have another heart attack, but whatever the case, he really never expressed any disappointment in Blanche after. They went through that whole really big period of arguing and then it just seemed like they were like, "Okay, we'll live together and we'll be married." But I fucking hate you and you know I do, so let's not even talk about it. - That's really sad. What a sad existence. - And sad for your kids. - Yeah, it's sad for everybody. - Yeah. So they just carried on as usual. She worked a lot, took care of the bills. She had a grand old time at Kroger. - Holy shit, but all of that came into an end in the fall of 1973. One day in late September of that year, James started experiencing symptoms of what he thought was the flu. He was getting bad headaches, his glands were swollen and he was becoming violently ill. When the symptoms finally got so bad that he couldn't manage them anymore, he went to see a doctor, but by then, things had escalated significantly. In addition to all the earlier flu-like symptoms, he now had painful blisters on his hands and feet. His hair was falling out in clumps. What? And his face was beginning to swell. The doctors had actually never seen anything like this, but they were like, "It's not related to your heart. That's for sure." Yeah, some shit is going on. So the doctor ordered a myriad of tests to rule out various illnesses and hopefully find the cause in the case of what the fuck was going on here. But after several tests, James was worried about the cost of the treatment and asked that no more tests be conducted. Which is like really sad. Yeah, because it's like something is obviously going wrong. Yeah. Now on the night of October 2nd, Blanche had just cooked dinner and set the table, but James told her his throat was hurting too much to eat, so he skipped dinner. But rather than let her husband go without dinner entirely, Blanche being the sweetie bobedy that she is, brought him some ice cream and convinced him to at least have some of it. It might make his throat feel better. You know? I'm scared. Unfortunately, within the hour after having said ice cream, James was writhing in tremendous pain on the couple's bed, which then escalated to him, so sorry, violent projectile vomiting. Oh no. And he said the feeling that something was inside of him trying to claw its way out. What the fuck? Rather than call for an ambulance, Blanche sent her daughter away, telling the girl she'd arranged for a doctor in the morning, and then she made up the couch, and she went to sleep on it. What? While her husband lay upstairs, projectile vomiting with the feeling that somebody was trying to claw its way out of him. That is horrifying. I'm sure you will be shocked to hear this. But the next morning when Blanche went to the bedroom to check on James, she found him on his side, his hands twisted like claws, and his face a bluish purple color. Oh my god. Under the circumstances, I think almost fucking anybody would call for some sort of help. Yeah. Emergency services, police. What have you? So he's dead to me. Blanche just calmly informed her daughter that her father was dead, and then went to call her other daughter, who I think maybe was at a sleepover or something, and informed her of the same thing. In fact, Blanche called nearly every single one of James' relatives to tell them that their loved one was dead. And also, she called the man she'd been having an affair with for 10 years, Raymond Reed, to tell him also that her husband was dead, and to please come over. And then finally, she called an ambulance and reported the death. I can't even picture this. Like this is next level. This is Mayhem. Why would you call. What's like a male mistress? It's just a mister. Your paramour maybe? Paramour. Why would you call your side man's over side piece to your house when like your husband just died? Yeah. And why would you call his whole family instead of emergency services? And why would you call your daughter and just tell them calmly, Daddy's dead. Why? I don't even know what to say. His death was listed a heart attack, which made sense given his medical history. But like PD Kaiser's death years earlier, no one considered the events and the symptoms that led up to the 45-year-old supposed heart attack. Yeah. Or the fact that those symptoms would not have been caused by heart failure. Hmm. So for a short time after James's death, which just happened and life moved on apparently. Yeah, apparently. Blanche played the role of a grieving widow, but really in no time things got back to normal. Her daughter Cindy said in 1989, "Mom never expected to spend the rest of her life by herself." She said she had too much to offer. Wow. She was just like, "Yeah, I don't give a shit." Yeah. Blanche and Raymond continued to see each other, but they would only visit each other at their respective homes so as to not contribute to any gossip, even though they'd literally been together for like 15 years. I was going to say, like really? But other than the living arrangements, they were very much a couple in every sentence. In thinking back on that time, Blanche's daughter Vanessa had fond memories. She said Raymond was a very good man. He was very good to us. I mean, that's good. So for a little bit, the arrangements seemed to suit everybody just fine. They could carry on their affair, while Blanche still had enough space to continue building her own identity, independent of men in her life for like four seconds. But her relationship with Reed wasn't the only bad habit that she carried on after her husband died abruptly. She also kept up her scheme of petty theft from the register. She's still at that. People started to notice the missing money, and people already had in the past, but more and more people were beginning to notice. Yeah. And finally in 1976, a bag of cash went missing from the store. Wow. As the person responsible for the register when the money went missing, Blanche was immediately suspected of the theft. And she was actually even questioned by the police and a private investigator that crowed her hired. Oh my god. But they couldn't find any evidence. And so there was no way she could be charged with anything. But a few months later, most people in Burlington did find it pretty odd that Blanche was able to afford a down payment on a new house. Pretty interesting, even though she had the salary of a grocery store clerk. She's just just really good at it. She's just thrifty. Yeah. Now, just as it had been with her now dead husband, as Blanche started to come into her own as a single woman, Raymond Reed's life became considerably more difficult. After he got divorced, his relationship with his wife was very bitter. And it was worse than it had ever been actually even when they were married. So it was hard for him to keep seeing his kids on a regular basis. Yeah. Which like maybe you should think about that before you cheat on your wife, just saying, yeah, I think that would be a good advice. That's just how I feel. But then there was problems at the store. In addition to the occasionally mysteriously missing money that he probably knew his mistress was responsible for, the store wasn't making the kind of profit that it needed to remain a viable branch. So that meant that there were more frequent visits by the store's regional manager, Robert Hutton. Now like Raymond, Robert, sorry, I'm like I'm confusing here, Robert Robert. Here is Marcus the worm. We must quote Marcus the worm at all times. Robert Hutton was very devoted to the Kruger company, a lot like Raymond. And he loved his job. But that's where the similarities between the two of them ended. Robert Hutton, the manager. He was young. He was apparently good looking and said to be cartoonishly masculine. I'm just picturing Johnny Bravo. What was the, it was in Twilight, one of the Twilight movies, something feminine, like aggressively feminine. It reminds me of that cartoonishly masculine. It's hard to say to cartoonishly masculine masculine. Was it aggressively feminine? I think it was like aggressively feminine. I think it was in the book. Yeah, it is in the book. I think it's like Jacobs chapter. Yeah, he says Rosalie and Alice. And Alice, right? Yeah. Just reminded me about, now we have cartoonishly masculine. I love it. Robert bragged about his ability to sleep with any woman he wanted to. Love telling Romchy jokes, which like you probably shouldn't do as the manager of a store. Probably not. Yeah. And he also had a habit of sleeping around with women at various stores in his district. Oh, what a pig. And really didn't make it a secret. So after careful review, he concluded that the Burlington Kroger did not stand a chance of survival and the store ended up having to be closed. Now fortunately, he did recognize that a lot of the staff was in fact very reliable, very competent good people, including Blanche and Raymond. So like, maybe not good people, but so they were all offered jobs at other area locations at a pay cut though. Raymond was demoted to assistant manager in Martin'sville. And that was one of the Virginia stores. And Blanche was demoted to just a regular old cashier position in Greensboro. A few months later, Hutton moved Raymond to the Durham North Carolina store and then promoted him back to manager, but Blanche stayed where she was. Now, not surprisingly, the demotion and relocation were major disappointments for Blanche. She didn't have the power that she had over other cashiers anymore. Oh, no. And she also didn't get to spend every day with her side man. So therefore, she didn't know what he was getting up to. Well, she was away, who's to be sure. I know. Well, you know, the way you have to worry about. Yeah, you got to be worried. It took some time. But by 1983, she managed to get transferred to the store that he worked at. Oh, man, guys. The relocation. At least in our long commute each way. But apparently it was worth it to her to keep up her relationship with Raymond. And it also meant that she would be working alongside Robert Hutton, who she thought was irresistibly attractive since they had letters earlier. This bitch wants to have her cake and eat it. She does. Now, by the 1980s, the early 1980s, Blanche and Raymond's relationship had been going on for like 15 years or possibly more. And like her marriage before it, things had become less exciting than they once were. As She got older, blanched and didn't find Raymond to be so attractive anymore. She didn't think he was as fit as he should be. She really loves to vouch him. I just got to say it. She really does. He also had grown tired of their not-so-secret relationship and really just wanted to be together since they could be now. But that wasn't fun for her. After she moved to the Greensboro store, he actually asked her to marry him. But she was like, "No, my God." And then he asked her to marry him again. She said, "No." And she was like, "No." Yeah, guys. She said, "No." And then he kept asking her to marry him. And she continued to say, "No." "My God. Get it together." Yeah. She didn't just not want to marry him, but she really wasn't interested in changing their relationship at all. She was like, "We can have a glindestine affair forever and ever." Now if she wasn't interested in marrying Raymond and committing to monogamy, it's probably because she had her site set on Robert Hutton, now the store manager, the other one. Over the months that they've been working together, she was dropping hints indicating her interest in him, but he hadn't really picked up on anything, which was kind of crazy, because he was a disgusting pig who regularly groped women that he employed. God. So I guess subtlety was something he wasn't accustomed to. Oh, he lacked solely. But despite his aggressiveness with some women at the store and his tendency to grab them without permission, he knew that his attention wasn't wanted from Blanche. Like he thought that she didn't want him to do that to her, I guess? Oh. What made him think that? I don't really know to be honest with you, but eventually Blanche dropped the subtlety and got right to the point and just told him that she wanted him and she knew he wanted her. Yeah. So I guess they got together. There it is. Now, by 1985, her life was spinning out of control again. She was still seeing Raymond regularly and continuing to deny his marriage proposals. Cool. While also carrying on a sexual relationship with her boss, Robert Hutton, and apparently balancing the two was getting a little bit difficult. Yeah. Anyway, the chaos escalated when Blanche called Raymond one day to tell him that she had come home and her house was ablaze. Oh, she said, "Hello, Raymond. I got home and it's engulfed in flames." Hi. So now she's on fire. He raced over to Blanche's house and when he got there, luckily by then, the firefighters had managed to put out the flames, but the damage had been done. When they went into the bedroom, fire investigators found all of Blanche's underwear and lingerie scattered about. And she claimed that there had been a pervert prowling around the house days before, and she was pretty sure that he was the one who set the fire. Oh, excuse me. But weirdly, when they asked for any defining characteristics of this person that she had seen only days early, or Blanche couldn't remember any details. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, her homeowner's insurance paid out a large sum, and she sold the house as is, which is crazy, but she managed to come out ahead. And she used the money to buy a mobile home a few miles away. But this fire is where things really started to get fucking crazier in her life. Over the course of a year, she continued her affair with Robert Hutton and her relationship with Raymond, while also having a bunch of one-night stands with a bunch of other men in town. Blanche. She's young and she's young. I guess she is. She is young and gay. So that's one way of describing this. I don't know how else to say. A few months after the fire that destroyed her house, Blanche was again. Sadly, the victim of another house fire. You know what? Some people are soon just kind of follows. It's crazy. Follows them around. It's the weirdest thing. You can never figure out why. You really can't. You know, sometimes fire, just fire curses. Fire follows people. Yeah. Yeah, it follows, but it's fire. It does, but it's fire follows. Fire follows. So Raymond got to Blanche's house to pick her up for fucking church one after another. I'm sorry. It's just wild to me that this woman goes to church. But he was getting annoyed that she was taking so long, which was going to make them late and he didn't want to be late for church. So after she got out to the car, they had barely pulled out of the driveway when Raymond slammed on the brakes and said, Blanche, there's smoke coming out of your bedroom window. In response, she didn't look back. She just said, no, I think that's the son reflecting on it. Yeah. I'm sorry. But if somebody tells me that there's smoke coming from my bedroom window, I'm going to tell them, hey, would you mind pulling back in the driveway so I can figure out what the fuck that's about? Yeah. No. I'd just be like, I bet it's just the son reflecting. I'm not worried. Yeah. She was like, listen, we're late. We have to get to church. Yeah. Don't worry about that. Now, crazy. Yeah. When they returned from church later that evening. I better know. They entered the house to find that the place was on fire. Oh my God. So much fire. Can you believe it? More fire. We're looking around the corners of the bedroom and Blanche exclaimed, oh, damn it. Must have been that pervert again. Must have been just that that arsonist pervert, that fiery pervert, not a fiery pervert. So Raymond grabbed the fire extinguisher from the kitchen and managed to put out the remains of the flames. But again, the damage had been done and Blanche's bedroom was a mess of fire and smoke damage because of the fiery pervert in the closet. There was a single wax candle burning on the floor. That's all. That's the mark of a fiery arsonist pervert. Yes. Yes. To Raymond's surprise, though, the insurance company paid out a second claim on the fire without any questions. Huh. I feel like a man took that claim. I just have to say it. So during this time, Blanche managed to get a medical note from a doctor that claims she had intestinal problems, which had been exacerbated by the fire. So it was possible she may need to take time off from work periodically. Of course, she very much used that as an excuse to pull off work or call out whenever she felt like it, which put Raymond in a difficult position every time she did it because he was her manager. By that summer, he finally insisted that Blanche had to return to work or she had to find a different job. But rather than given, she apparently went to Robert Hutton and initiated sex with him in his office, which produced a favorable result in terms of extending her medical leave. Every decision she makes, I just never know where it's going. I know that was a crazy way to tell you what happened, but like how else was I supposed to work at it? Honestly, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. So she didn't want to lose that job. So she got to work in a different way. She sure did. Yeah. In case you didn't pick that up. Everything that was happening at the time, it's very abundantly, massively clear that Blanche was becoming more and more reckless with every day that was passing. It would seem so. But all like that being said at the same time, it really didn't seem like she had a long-term strategy for anything. But at the same time, not everything she did was on impulse. One week after she and Hutton had sex in his office, Blanche showed up at the law office of Walker Hoey and Cronodal, Walker and or Hoey and Cronodal, the office of law, in a meeting with Douglas Hoey, one of the men, in play in Cronodal, the law. She laid on a long history of the sexual harassment that she experienced at Cronodal at the hands of the district manager, Robert Hutton. Whoa. Yeah. Do you remember that she did go to his office and then she ate sex to keep her job? After hearing the story she told, Hoey agreed to take the case, obviously. And in January of 1986, she filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Cronodal. Well, we should have $13.8 million in Superior Court. Wow. Among other things, the suit accused Robert Hutton of four counts of battery, four counts of assault, four counts of inflicting emotional distress, and one count of invasion of privacy. The suit also alleged that executives at Cronodal were aware of Hutton's sexual percolivities and failed to take any precautionary measures. Wow. She claimed that on multiple occasions, excuse me, he had called her into his office or conference rooms and exposed himself to her, fondled her or made sexual advances. Fuck that guy. In the most egregious of these incidents, she claimed that he approached her from behind, sorry, this is all very graphic, he approached her from behind while she was stalking items and grabbed her around the waist and said, are you ready for this? Ew. And I'm not asking you if you're ready for this, that's what he asked her. No, that's like literally what he said. And she said, they're in the grocery store, please remember that. She said when she turned around, he was nude from the waist down. Ew. She said she managed to get out of his grasp and grab his pants and underwear, and then she ran out of the store, which forced him to leave wearing a shirt and a tie in a butcher's apron. Oh my God. She also alleged that he frequently threatened to fire her or transfer her to another store if she didn't acquiesce to his demands. I mean, that's fucked up. Remember that blanche? Is the oldest woman on death row? Remember that. Yeah, we should remember that. Now, given his history with women at the company though, because he is a pig. Yeah. Not all of this is true, like all everything that she put in her lawsuit and like we know that. But he is a pig. Yeah. So given his history with women, it really wasn't that hard for anybody to believe. But blanche had alleged, and Robert Hutton was forced to resign from his position. Yeah. The case got held up in pre-hearing motions for the next two years. Until in late 1987, Kroger finally agreed to settle for 250,000. Damn. So blanche has a lot of money now. Sure does. Now, in the spring of 1986, one of Blanche's sisters called and asked if she would join them for Easter service at the Carolina United Church of Christ in Burlington. Of Cras, her husband, uh, legislature sister's husband, was in the hospital dying from cancer. And this was a tradition. that they always looked forward to, so Blanche agreed to accompany her to the service. Now Blanche had been to that service many times in her life. I just feel like it's like, you know what I mean? - Blanche. - Blanche. - Blanche. - You got it. - So she had been there a million times, but when she arrived for Easter service in 1986, she was surprised to find that the church had been taken over by a fun new pastor. - Oh, you don't say Reverend Dwight Moore. Dwight you say? - In Dwight, yeah. - In fact, Easter was to be Moore's first big celebration as the new pastor, so the stakes were very high and he was very much looking forward to this event. - Oh, absolutely. - No, not long before he arrived in Burlington, before he found himself as head pastor, he had gone through a really painful divorce, which was not officially the cause for his moving, but it was almost certainly why he was reassigned. - Yeah. - So he hoped the new scenery and the new community would be an opportunity to heal some of his pain. Now for someone who had been drawn to the flare and drama of her father's fire in Brimstone preaching, Blanche wasn't terribly impressed with Reverend Moore when she first saw him. Unlike the preacher she was used to from her youth, he was kind of a modern church leader who focused on the more positive aspects of Christianity. - Yeah. - And he kind of left behind like darker old testament lessons that he thought were scary. - Score. - Score. But still, there was something about him that Blanche found intriguing. He was handsome, he was friendly, he was energetic. Maybe she didn't like his preaching but she lacked his face. - Well, there you go. - And for his part, he couldn't help but find himself drawn to Blanche as well. - Oh no. - As soon as that Easter service ended and the congregation made their way to Easter breakfast, he immediately spotted Blanche and her sister and he might as well go over to the table. Now, if he had been in Burlington for more than a few weeks, the odds were that he probably would have heard a lot of rumors about Blanche. - Yeah. - And while he may not have approved of that gossip, he probably would have stayed away, probably. But he hadn't heard about Blanche's salacious and occasionally scandalous past. - Uh oh. - So he saw no reason why he shouldn't reach out to her. - Yeah, why not? - About a week after the Easter service, he managed to get a hold of her address, which is a little bit sketchy, and he showed up at her house one evening, but she wasn't home. He returned a few days later and managed to catch her and the two sat down, chatted over coffee, gave her a little of his history, they got to know one another. Now, as religious leaders go, Dwight Moore's backstory was surprisingly atypical. After high school, he went to Duke University where he studied theology. Being educated in a traditional university, I guess made him kind of an outlier in the Christian church, but what was more surprising was that shortly after beginning his service at his previous assignment, he started having an affair with his secretary, Eileen. - Oh, who was also married at the time. - Okay. - Eileen eventually left her husband and she and Moore made their relationship public, but it was always a well-known secret that they started seeing each other when they were both married. - My God. - After nearly 20 years together, their relationship eventually soured and they divorced, which proved to scandalist for the congregation, and that's why he moved. They said, "We can't have this." They said, "No, no, no." Now, maybe Blanche saw something of herself in Dwight Moore's story, or maybe she just liked the way he looked who's to say, "She liked his face?" "She did like his face." Whatever it was, the two headed off and they started seeing each other more and more and more, and they made sure to keep everything a secret. For more, another romantic scandal would have had him excommunicated and probably kicked out of his new congregation. - Yeah. - And as for Blanche, her lawsuit against Kroger alleged that as a result of workplace or husband, she had been unable to form healthy relationships with men. - Yeah. - So if the new relationship got out, that case probably would have been lost, probably. - Now, as her interest in Dwight Moore grew, the amount of time that she had in her life for Raymond decreased, and that wasn't lost on him. In the spring of 1986, he showed up at Blanche's house, unannounced, and he gave her a very expensive ring and a velvet lined box. And he said, "Don't feel like I'm trying to pressure you. "I just wanted you to have something nice for me." Now that wasn't all Raymond gave her that day. He also handed her over two tickets and a hotel confirmation for a trip to Florida. Just wants to have a nice little trip with her. - Okay. - Now during their trip to Florida, they didn't bark on a trip to Florida. - Okay. - Raymond did everything he could to endure himself to Blanche. He wanted to rekindle their once passionate romance. He paid for everything. He complimented her. He flattered her endlessly. Doted on her morning until night. Sounds really nice. But nothing really seemed to work when they got back from the trip. She told her psychiatrist, "I feel really guilty when I tell Raymond not to come over. "He always wants to come to my house. "I gotta tell him goodbye." She's like, "You know what? "This is kind of bullshit." - She's like, "I do feel feelings, "but I'm not into it. "But I'm kind of annoyed." So like she had done years ago when she was cheating on her husband, Blanche went out of her way to keep Dwight, past her Dwight, a secret from Raymond. But he was hearing the rumors from the cashiers at the store and from everybody else in town. And the thought of losing Blanche to another man was so incredibly stressful, that eventually his body began to react to the stress. - Oh no, you don't say. - Or so he thought. - Hmm, one afternoon in the spring of 1986, after experiencing an outbreak of some kind of painful blistering rash. - Oh no. - Raymond went out of nowhere. - He out of nowhere, I tell you. Raymond went to his doctor, Dr. Norman Garrett, who took one look at one of those red blistered boils on his skin and diagnosed him with. - Shingles. - Shingles is incredibly painful, and incredibly disrupting, but it can be brought back under control with medication and with rest. But no matter how much Raymond rested and took the medication as he was directed, he wasn't getting any better. - Oh no. - And by April, he ended up being admitted to the hospital. By that time, he was experiencing significant numbness in his arms and legs. - Oh shit. - In a burning sensation with severe stomach discomfort. Oh no. - So for the next several months, he spent most of his time in and out of the hospital and traveling to different specialists, just trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. Eventually, they diagnosed him with Gion-Bere syndrome, Gion-Bere. - Oh yeah. - Which is a rare immune disorder where basically your body's muscle system just starts to fail. - Yeah, that's crazy. - The symptoms can look a lot like the symptoms of poisoning. But at the time, nobody had any reason to suspect that it wasn't Gion-Bere. - Yeah. - Now, in early October, only five months after his symptoms emerged, Raymond re-died in the hospital. - Oh shit. - Now, according to her daughters, Planch visited Raymond often in the hospital and seemed to strought by his death. But I'd like to highlight, visited him often in the hospital. - Was in the hospital with him. - Yeah. - Not only that, she did act publicly to strought over his death, but not so distraught that she wasted any time and delivering his safe to his kids, his sons a few days after their father had died. The safe had been in Raymond's house when he died and the boy's new, that's where he kept an antique coin collection that he was saving for them. - Yeah. - And there were silver bars in there too, that he collected over the years. But when they opened the safe, would the key that Blanch gave them? His sons were surprised to find that the silver bars were missing and so was the large chunk of a coin collection. - Ah. - Everything was gone. - That's so fucked up. - So fucked up and so strange. - Yeah. - I'm not happy. - That's so fucked up when things disappear like that. - I know and people just die miraculously after having the strangest symptoms. - It's so crazy. - But that, my friends, is where we're gonna end for part one. - Damn. - And in part two, we'll learn a lot more about strange symptoms and things that go missing and the woman that is behind all of it. - Blanch is really out here. - Blanch Taylor Moore is a reckless woman. - I mean, she's the oldest woman on death row. So she, she did it. - She did something. - So whatever, whatever been done, she did it. (laughing) - Period. - I can't believe she's gonna do more. - She's gonna do more. I have a whole part two. - Oh shit. - Yeah. - There's a pastor too. - Oh man, of course there is. - 'Cause I mean, you know him. - Dwight, of course. - Yeah. - Dwight wasn't gonna get out of this. - Maybe. - I don't, not Scott free, I imagine. - I'll tell you in part two. - I guess you will. - All right. Well, I have a fun fact for you actually. - Oh. - I don't even know if it's my turn, but it is. - It's cool. - I got a Snapple yesterday. - Oh, you did. - I haven't had a Snapple in forever, and I forgot that they put fun facts in the cap. - I forgot that too. - And my fun fact was, Corilla's burp when they're happy. - I love that. - And I put for Corilla's burp when I'm happy. - I do too. - That's awesome. - So good for all of us. - Like, he knows that better than anybody. - Yes. - All right. Well, with all that being said, we hope you keep listening. - And we hope, yeah. - Keep it. - Weird. - Keep it so weird that you're so happy that you burp, burp, burp, burp, burp, burp, burp, burp. - Yeah. - But that's your world away. - Yeah, burp all your rules away. But not so weird that people around you start dying with painful listers all over their body. 'Cause like, that's just so strange. - That's so weird. - Unexplainable. - And don't, you know, be followed by a fire perv. - No. - Don't do that. - That's weird. - Don't do that. A fiery perv if you will. - It's not a fiery perv. (laughs) (soft piano music) 1/3 o'clock 1/3 o'clock 1/3 o'clock 1/3 o'clock 1/3 o'clock 1/3 o'clock 1/3 o'clock 1/3 o'clock