Serial Granny - Burlington, North Carolina

This week, in Burlington, North Carolina, a series of deaths over a long period of time seems like unavoidable tragedies, until a man survives a horrible illness, leading detectives to look at the most unlikely murder suspect possible, a grandmotherly church lady with the history of calamity and misfortune. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrogallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wiseman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another crazy, what is, this is a crazy episode. If the intro didn't give away, that it's a crazy episode, it is crazy and there's a lot of death here, wild stuff here. So thank you so much for joining us. You will not be disappointed. Before we get started, head over to shut up and give me murder.com. Get it all there. First of all, all of your merchandise, everything like that, everything from skateboards to shower curtains. It's all right there. Then also get your tickets for live shows, live shows starting up again after the summer, September 18th in Milwaukee at the PAPST. That's going to be great. Not a lot of tickets left for that too. So get those right now. Then September 19th in Minneapolis at the state theater. Get those tickets right now. Do not, don't let Milwaukee punk you, Minneapolis. One of the best venues in the country. You'll love it. It's great. Yeah, we love going to Minnesota until we love the crowd and we like to, especially the weather in September will still be nice. It's going to be good. Then we'll be in Dallas on October 3rd, October 16th, 17th are San Jose Sacramento. Get those tickets and then November 13th and 14th. Terry Town in Boston and Terry Town is getting close. So I would get those tickets soon. If you want to go to that, even though it's in December. So that said, definitely shut up and give me murder.com. Listen to our other two shows. Of course, crime in sports where we're doing a large series on the Yahweh cult from the 80s and Miami their Yahweh, but Yahweh and all the murders because one of the guys who killed a lot of people happen to be an NFL player. So remember, well, that we're doing all of that. Then your stupid opinions is just hilarious. Get in there and listen to that. Get yourself Patreon as well, everybody. Patreon.com/crimeinsports is where you get all of the bonus material. All you have to be is $5 a month or above and you get every damn tiny whatever we put out, including as soon as you subscribe hundreds of back bonus episodes. You've never heard before almost 400 to be exact and then new ones every other week when crime in sports, one small town murder and you get them all everybody. Get it all. You get it all this week. We're going to talk about for crime in sports. It's the craziest hostage situations that have happened. These are crazy. The Stockholm Syndrome one gave me this idea to look up others and there's a lot of wild hostage situations and they resolve in wild ways and then for small town murder looks like right now is the pole stands. It's probably going to be the crash and all the McKenzie-Sherilla stuff but still time to get your vote in for Cory Richards if that's what you want. So there is that and then the week after it will be Cory Richards. So it doesn't matter. So there you go, everybody. There is Patreon. Patreon.com/crimeinsports is where you get all of that and you get every show we put out. Crime in sports, your stupid opinion, small town murder. All add free with that Patreon as well and you get a shout out at the end of the show too. Jimmy will go ahead and mispronounce your name for you. Yeah. Even though he would love to get a correct trust me on that. So that's that disclaimer time. This is a comedy show everybody. We are comedians. We're going to make jokes but that does not mean that everything that happens isn't true and real and all of that. That's we try to get it as accurate as humanly possible here. We like to have, we like to say we try to do better research than date line but also be funny. That's what we're trying to do here. So you Michael that's a tight walk. That's a tight rock walk there. How do you do that? Well very easily I think actually there's plenty to make fun of first of all. We don't have to make fun of the victim and we don't. We never make fun of the victims or the victim's families. Why is that James? Because we're assholes but we're not scumbags. See that works. It's very easy. That's how that goes there. There's plenty to make fun of. We make fun of a small town because we're all from somewhere that deserves to be made fun of maybe a police force. That's a murder kill more and more. We should make fun of those guys for being terrible at the job and then we make fun of murderers because they're welcome. What are we going to do? Yeah. We get no other recourse on murderers. So that's what we do there. So that's how it works. If you think that that sounds great. You got a great story ahead of you. If you think true crime and comedy should never ever go together, I don't know why you're here first of all but second of all no complaint and later. I don't know what to tell you. Check it out. Yeah, check it out. I think it's you'll like it and if not then don't complain about it. Just go about your day. There you go. So that sounds good to me. I hope it sounds good to you and everybody out there. That said I think it's time to sit back everybody. What do you say here? Yeah. And clear the lungs and let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this everybody. Okay. Let's go on a trip. Shall we? Let us go. Yeah. We are going to North Carolina this week. What? Back to North Carolina. Yeah. That's right. We're going to Burlington, North Carolina here. Who knew? In an honor of North Carolina here. I grab some cheer wine for the thing because that's where I got hooked on the stuff. It's good. What is, huh? Burlington. There's another one up in what Vermont? Oh, yeah. There's plenty of Burlington's. Yeah. And there's also a coat factory, I believe. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Well, I don't think they call it fact co-factory anymore. They can call it whatever they want. It's still, yeah. It's still a place where you get somebody else's underwear packed in your brand new box. I don't care what they call it. It's always a coat factory. You can't ever outlive that. You cannot run the name coat factory. Yeah. They put a heart. Yeah. They care about that. Nobody loves this. No. And they don't love you for sure if they do. They would at least make sure the underwear doesn't have somebody else's in it. So that's head here. North central North Carolina. It's about an hour to rally. If you go kind of southeast. It's about an hour 45 to Charlotte. If you go the other direction. It's about 50 minutes to Walberg, North Carolina. Our last North Carolina episode, episode 665. That was deadly deeds with that. I remember that. That was a wild one. This is in two different counties. It is Alamance County and Gullford County. Area code 336 and 743. And the motto here. Okay. They have a motto. Belong in Burlington. You must. You come here. You belong because you're here. Yeah. Or they're they're telling you. Yeah. You belong here. Yesterday's season's cold. You belong here though. We allow. We don't have any schools or anything. So sex offenders is the only place you can live. Maybe that's what they're saying. We're not sure. We all belong history of this town here. Okay. The obviously there's natives here first. But the early settlers here were groups of Quakers. Quakers, which are still around some of the Quakers in this area. Is it close to the coast? No. No. Middle of the state. North Central. How about that in the middle there? Yeah. The Quakers can't shake those Quakers once they get their hooks in. They're like ticks. They're not coming out. And also there was German farmers and Scottish immigrants and Irish immigrants and that kind of thing here. Now the North Carolina Railroad in the 1850s needed to find some land where they could build repair and do maintenance on its track. That's how this town started. So they would take the trains to deliver the new track. Is that what it is? They would do that. I have no idea. Yeah. That's what I know that. I'm so interested in that now. I'm going to read a book. No, you're not. You're the fuck are you kidding? You won't read a book for this. No. I'm going to read a book for that. So not long after this, the Railroad realized they needed repair shops. Now that's the point. That's what I was getting into here was this place was for repair shops. They figured out another place to build the stuff, but then they needed a place to repair the stuff. Yeah. And that was here basically. So that's how it worked. Now the official name of the town at first was company shops, company shops North Carolina, which is as a ring to it. That's where everybody wants to retire. It's my dream. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you just sit on the beach and company shops. Then they changed it to Vance for a couple of years during the Civil War. Then they returned it to company shops in July of 1864, still during the Civil War. So that's crazy. The company shops remained a small village without anything like churches or schools or anything like that. It was just where a place where a bunch of dirty guys lived with covered in grease so they could fix it and try to locomotive engines. Now following the leasing of the railroad to Richmond and Danville, a bunch of the railroad jobs transferred to other places. So the shops no longer operated there. And that's when they said we shouldn't be called company shops anymore. That's a little weird considering there aren't any. It's not a company. Nor a shop. Nor a shop. So in 1880s, they don't even have any shops. They don't have a shop. So in February 1887, a contest was held, which always gets the bad. That's how expansion like football teams get their names. You shouldn't name a whole town after that. It was held to decide a name and one person submitted the name Burlington only because they saw it on the side of a passing train and they thought they liked the way it sounded. There's nobody name Burlington. Nobody started the town named Burlington has nothing to do with this place. Those trains still exist. There was just, I've seen people's old underwear and shitty, uh, you know, and, uh, 86 dollar coats, uh, 86 dollar park is that are normally 199. That's what they saw going by from three years, three years ago. Well, yeah, obviously, um, there was, I was in a Burlington, like, five years ago. And they had tons of members, only jackets, really? Oh, they had, yeah, they did have a resurgence there for a minute. They had like, I, you, I felt like I was a member. They had all, I must have been a member being in this place because there was all of them. They had leather ones. I was like, who the fuck? I saw a white leather members only jacket out like, no, why? What kind of a, this is like Jesse gemstone wouldn't even wear that. This is insane. Who the fuck would wear this? No, why? What white? Jamie. Don't get a white white. White leather members only jacket. It's exactly the members are fascinating. Yeah. But white. It was white. Yeah. I just got, I'd like to wear this for two days. I just got a white puffy one, I'll never wear it. No. Two days. That thing is filthy and gross. Yeah. What about you? I'm going to order a coffee and I'll never wear this again. You might as well get a bindle. Two days from now. They should come with a bindle because you're going to look like you're traveling the tracks there. I don't know. So anyway, they changed it to Burlington based on that because that's, that's a good reason to name it town. So anyway, reviews in this town, I've never been here. I don't know anything about it. So let's find out. Five stars. I have lived in Burlington all of my life and have no major concerns. Okay. Overall, it's, it's pretty well. Okay. Overall, it's pretty well. They, they heard they, I do enjoy it though. Yeah. Proper English. I don't think that's, well, it might be, but I think they heard that like instead of good, you're supposed to use well and someone asks you how you're doing. So they were like, overall, it's pretty well when like that's a perfect opportunity for good. Also, good would work here just as well as what I'm saying. Yeah. Both work. Yeah. It's pretty well. Doesn't sound great. It doesn't flow as well as all I'm saying. It's, it doesn't have the flow to it. Probably the right. It's not saying it's not. Yeah. It just doesn't flow very well. Sounds funny. Events for children and family oriented. Okay. Three stars. It's a decent town. But if you're, if you're young and looking for things to do, dot, dot, dot, good luck. You run out of things pretty quickly. Things to do, meaning drugs, I would assume, because you're going to get bored fast here. Two stars, finally here. There are home. The homes are fairly old and need work and improvement. Okay. I'm unsure of the interior of other homes. Oh. Are you outside? The inside might be great. Nobody invites me. Yeah. But my home is furnished with our belongings from previous homes. You know how people like, like, I had to, when I first found this review, I had to read that like three times. And I'm like, so you just, you mean you bring your shit when you move from place to place? This guy thinks you go and buy a new shit every time. Just leave it all behind. Uh, yeah. So most of our furniture could not fit into this smaller home. So we either got rid of it or store them in storage. This is a review of the town. Thank you for telling me how you move. I don't, you run a truck, are you going to tell us that? This is why people are the worst. Hey, how do you like Burlington? And literally two sentences into it. You're like, we couldn't fit all this stuff into smaller homes. So we put it in storage and I really, what the fuck are we talking about? I asked you how the town was. There are some buildings down the road, which are abandoned, not sure of what they were , uh, were before. The utilities and bills are old, so sometimes it can run high for this being a small home. What? Wow. I'm fascinated by that person. That's one of those. You read it and you go, I wish English wasn't their first language, because then I could give them an excuse, but I really feel like it is. And they're just morons. Yeah. Yeah. Um, people in this town, uh, 56,000 five sixty three. And there was, there was less, uh, when the murder occurred as well, but 56, 56, three, it's, uh, almost 52 percent women, 51.6 percent women. So it's, uh, a lot of women in this town, median age is right at the national average, 38.8, um, pretty close to it. Um, family in this town here, it's 44 percent married, but 24 percent, uh, single with children, which is more than double what we usually, that's pretty high average. Yeah. Exactly like a, a little suburb type of joint. You know what I mean? But it's also a bunch of fun people. It's, uh, they seem to be having a good time. Yeah. They're, they're, I mean, they're fucking, I mean, know that. That's good. That's always fun. Yeah. You know, I'm complaining about that. That's the person that they made it with. I mean, that's fine. It's up to you. Yeah. Whatever you want. Uh, race in this town, uh, 47.4 percent white, 29.2 percent black, 3.3 percent Asian, 19.6 percent Hispanic. And it's like America. Yeah. It's a very, uh, yeah, it's a, well, a lot of southern towns are like that too. There'll be kind of half white. Really spread out. Yeah. It's kind of nice. Yeah. Um, so then we also have, uh, 43.2 percent of the people here are religious. And it's honestly spread out pretty good here, um, but the most, of course, is Baptist. Yeah. As we know, Baptist are the Catholics of the South, obviously, they're everywhere down there. Um, 0.0 percent, Jewish, it is rural North Carolina, um, unemployment here still is slightly low, slightly under the national average, but so is the median household income. It's very low, um, normally it's about 69,000. That's the average here, the median household income, 47,158. Oh, oh, that's low. That's not great. Um, cost of living here, 100 is regular average here, it is 84. So not too, too low, um, the housing is, is the low thing. No, that's, I mean, the housing median home cost here, $195,600. So that's pretty high, but still affordable to be under 200,000 in the country right now. It's been, unless you're in like West Virginia, that's a pretty, pretty good price. Um, so I mean, maybe you need this place. Maybe you want to run for mayor and have them return to their roots as company shops North Carolina. Well, you're going to need some place to live first. So we have for you the Burlington, North Carolina real estate report, your average two bedroom rental here goes for $1,050, which is a couple hundred below the national average. Here is house number one. And I use the word house loosely, uh, it is a trailer, single-lied appears to be three bedroom, two bath. It doesn't tell you the square footage. I'm going to say about 800, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's a single-wide trailer, about 880 or 10 by 90. There's carpet in the living room, which I don't care for and shit like that. It's, it's not great. Put it that way. It's a trailer built built quote unquote in 2007, assembled in 2007, 55,000 bucks for that though. I bet that doesn't come with the land. I think that's pretty good. I think so if it comes with the land, it's fine. It doesn't. Yeah, if you got to pay a lot fee, then you're, you're shit out of luck here. Next up for bedroom, two bath, 1168 square foot house. Wow. It's a cool little old house. It has like brick and concrete steps that go up and then it's siding. But it's, it's built in 1910 and it's nice, got some nice wood floors in there. It's a cool little house. It's not bad. Sure. Not a very 1200 square feet four bedrooms are cramming them into that, but 205,000 dollars for that though. Holy. So I mean, you could live in it. It's got four bedrooms. You got a couple of kids. Very small. And if you want to spread out a bit, let's say, yeah, tall drink of water. Got to spread your shit out here. You got four bedrooms, six bath, tea bowl for each and every beehole that you might have out there in the world, 5,237 square feet, got big. It's a big like stone and brick house. It's gorgeous. It's on 10 acres. Plenty of room to spread out just woods behind you as far as it goes. It's a gorgeous place. It's well done inside to clearly kept up to date. One million six hundred twenty thousand dollars for that though. One point six. One point just had an $80,000 price cut, was 1.7. Give it a bit here. Things to do. Well, they also have the Burlington carousel festival. Okay. It's the largest event in Burlington, the carousel festival. Yeah, there's nothing. I hate more than a carousel. It's super. It celebrates the historic hand-carved 1910s densal carousel. I don't know. That's like back in. It's the hey day of carousels. It's like 1910. 1910. People really didn't have radio yet, didn't have anything to do. So sitting on a fucking wooden horse and going around slowly was like, that was an activity back in 1910. Did it go up and down back then you think or do you think that was like 1913? Oh, yeah. No, I'm sure they had kids who were like had a day off from being newsies or pinboys. I assume would be up there doing this, raising the kids, covered in grease. Looking like Dick Van Dyke and Mary Poppins. You ever look up on a carousel, that is the most horrifying thing ever. There's just lots of grease that's keeping this thing going. All sorts of mechanisms that can break through your journal. So the carousel festival's features live music on multiple stages. Yeah. All sorts of other shit here. They have, let's see who's performing there. there. Buddy Jewel will be there. Yeah. He's great. You know, you know, you know, are you getting? No, I don't know if you're kidding. I don't know. I met that. I met that. Country singer. He's good. Oh, okay. I figured he was a country singer. That went without saying. I just didn't know you draper. Anybody's ever heard of him before. What's now a day is Mikey? They leave off the Z's a rapper. Yeah. Auto-tune country. Fucking horse shit rap. That is the worship. Buddy Jewel's a pretty decent. He's probably a douche. I don't know. I have no idea. But yeah, there he is. He's going to be performing there from 10 a.m. Oh, no, the concerts from 6 p.m. to 7 30 p.m. He's opening for the fireworks is what he's doing. That's a rough one. He is the headliner, but the fireworks are the real headliner. That's the real headliner. Crime rate in this town. Well, we are interested in here. Property crime about 25 percent above the national average. Wow. Some shit going down. And then violent crime, murder, rape robbery, and of course assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime, obviously, is also about the same amount. It's about 25 percent above the average. So this place is a little frightened. This place is fucking, yeah, I don't know. It's, you know, deadwood over here. It sounds like it's not good. Watch out. It's tombstone. So let's add, let's talk about some murder. What do you say? Let's do this. All right. We have some wild shit here. Let's start out by talking about a lady. Okay. She has problems, a lot of problems growing up and really throughout her life. Her name is Blanche Kaiser. That's how she's born K AI or K I S E R Kaiser. Oh. So Blanche here. Then she'll be Blanche Kaiser Taylor and Blanche Kaiser Taylor Moore also. She's got some stuff. Kaiser Taylor Moore. Kaiser Taylor Moore. It sounds like a law firm. It's almost a television. Kaiser Taylor Moore. Yeah, it really is. February 17th, 1933. She's born. All right. Now, yeah. And she has just problems. I like to call her this whole time. I've been putting this episode together. I've been calling her calamity Blanche. That's what I keep calling her old calamity Blanche over here, speaking of Deadwood. Tough life. She's born in Concord, North Carolina. She is the fifth of seven children, which you couldn't be like, if you were telling a joke and you were like trying to say someone was like anonymous, you would say they're like the fifth of seven children. Like that would be, you know what I mean? There's like no. Of course. Sixth one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, even the six that's gotten there at least like four and five are really nobody like nobody knows what the hell they're doing out of seven kids. Now, her father was Parker Davis Kaiser. Everyone called him PD and his mother's name was flawny flawny Blanche Kaiser. Her mother her mother, her mother is flawny Blanche Kaiser. So she's named after her mother's middle name. Now, PD, dad is as I don't even know if a character covers him because he's not that great of a guy here. He worked in the mills. Yeah. And at the same time was an ordained Baptist minister as well. So he would talk, he's a, and this is like fire and brimstone sin and redemption shit he's talking about. This isn't love your neighbor or anything. This is fiery Baptist shit of, you're going to burn hell fires is what they're talking about from sin and all that stuff. That's what he, anyway, that's what he was really in the talking about. The problem is when he's not, because after a while he just becomes a preacher and only a preacher. But basically if he's not standing in the pulpit, like if he takes one step to the side, he's going to be drinking gambling or fucking a strange woman. One of the three is that right. Yeah. Yeah. He's a, yeah. That's what these guys do. That's their perfect cover. Yeah. I mean, especially back then too, people didn't know that preachers could be bad guys too, really. So they could, this was a great. Just kept it, kept it on the, on the low, huh? Oh, I don't know how much. It's a small town. And you're the preacher. So everyone knows you. If you're out drinking gambling, corrousing, everyone's got to know that you're doing that. Everyone's got to know that. Just a cowboy. He just goes to the places where basically no one will admit that they were there too. Maybe there's also one of those. If you see me there, then we're both in this together. It's like a joke of, yeah. If you take one more man, or to do anything, you have to take two because they keep an eye on each other. Exactly. Yeah. Otherwise, they'll, but if one does it, the other one will do it too. Yeah. And then they fucking just mums the word. That's it. Yeah. And if you get a third one in there, then forget about it. No one's doing anything. You're about to have a problem. Then they're just going door to door trying to convert people. Yeah. It'll be tithing by the end of this trip. That's a work. Somebody's going to be tithing. So basically, yeah, he'd fire and brimstone on Sunday morning. And then afterwards lose the family's bill and food money at the tables like he's wild. Now, when Blanche was nine, about 1942. So this is like, you know, second world war time. We're, we're mobilizing at this point. The family moves to Burlington, which was a textile town here. And that's where she will stay and live for a long, long time. Now, most of the side, this is all undisputed. The stuff we've said so far, dad definitely worked the mills definitely a Baptist preacher and definitely a womanizer, carousel, gambler, you know, whatever the fuck. Now the rest of the stuff that happens to Blanche only comes from Blanche herself. Not saying that we, you know, we should have no reason to believe or disbelief her just saying the way I try to give sources the source of this is not her brothers and sisters don't back this up, but they don't say it's not true either. Nobody really says anything about it because this is just biographical at this point. Autobiographical. Yeah. So she had from her. So basically, she said that when her dad lost money and couldn't pay the debts, basically, he would sell her when she was a young teenager to pay the debts. She'd have to go fuck some guy to pay off a debt. That sounds, if that's true, that is as horrific as a thing as possible. What's worse? Yeah. I mean, we know her dad's a hypocrite. So I mean, I don't know how much farther is this down the line from how much of a hypocrite is anyway. So I mean, I'm not saying I don't believe this at all. That seems terrible, highly possible because I just heard a lot of bad things like her father was just a bad guy and a mean guy and a nasty guy. So yeah, she said she was both psychologically and sexually abused, which I think that act falls under that pretty white umbrella of both of those things. Yeah. Now the other thing about Blanche and this is what makes me also believe this is back then if you were a young lady born in 1933, unless you were like grew up in a rail station or something, you didn't like talk about sex or anything like that. Even Rizzo in Greece was a little, you know, innuendo and shit like that. She wasn't like sticking in me, big boy. Let's go fucking balls deep. So it wasn't graphic, you know what I mean? My dad's sister is still that way or my grandfather's sister is still that way. Telling people to stick it in her. She doesn't talk about anything like that. Oh, about something that's anything that's uncouth or unacceptable. She is so prim and proper. It's adorable. Yes, she sits at the table and is like, I've taken a turkey. I've taken a dick bigger that turkey like. You said that and I'm like, oh my God, I got to meet your aunt. She sounds hilarious. She's pretty amazing. She is proper. We played, we played cards against humanity and she was red faced. Oh, I bet. Yeah, that's going to she was so upset. The only reason you guys played was to see how red her face would get to upset. She was not happy. Well, apparently Blanche when she was young and we're talking teenager, we're talking mid 40s here. Yeah. In the mid 40s, I mean, there was none of that shit. They said that she would go pretty much mid sentence in the same breath from quoting scripture to talking extremely graphically about sex, like graphic graphic. And there's no internet, even though I don't even know where you would go to find a magazine about sex back then. I mean, for a teenage girl to know any of this shit, it's because it was done to her. That's the only way. Yeah, little or finance. He wasn't talking about this on the radio. I don't remember that in the fireside FDR chats. Come on. Let's tell you about the wall. And by the way, let the guy do it on your face. It'll give him confidence to go fight the Nazis. Yeah. And then he says those dimples above her ass are thumb holders. Their thumb holders. And you can fill. They also make wonderful jizz pools. So May of 1952. This is May 29, 1952. She's 19 and she gets married. And if I'm her, I'm marrying the first fucking guy I can to get out of this goddamn house. And that's what a lot of people did back then. That's one of the reasons why there's so many young marriages back then is because they just needed to get out of whatever shit house they were from. She marries a guy. And this is the weird part. You would expect her to find a very bad guy. The marriage. A bitch of a man. A horrible alcoholic or somebody that's something's under the surface. She marries a guy named James Napoleon Taylor. James Taylor. You've seen fire and he's seen rain. And here he is now marrying a rich. Yeah, he's a Korean war veteran, and so he must have just got home from the war. He's a furniture restoreer by trade. Well, that's a very patient man. That's what I those are that's a complete opposite like that's a very patient very meticulous caring Not an ounce of arthritis in that house. Oh, not at all, but there will be some day They said that he's just a real ordinary and he's described by everybody as a very decent man Yeah, not an alcoholic doesn't be there doesn't do anything He's just a nice guy who goes and restores your your credenza and then comes home and he's fine. So Now they're gonna have two daughters that we'll talk about here They have a daughter in 1953 named Vanessa Dale Taylor and then and they'll have another daughter in 1959 named Cindy so in 1954 Blanche takes a job, and this is gonna be her career. She's gonna stay here for decades She takes a job at the Kroger's If you don't know what Kroger is Is that an early time up for that store that will crow I think North Carolina is the home of Kroger Is it I think so I think that you might be right? I think it's like the base or for Jen here something But that's where they started was North Carolina. I remember my dad lived there you go to a Kroger They'd say they've been here for decades Yeah, yeah, so my brother lived in Arkansas and it was huge there. It's big. Yeah, it's big in the South and the mid-South area around there So She takes a job there in 1954 Kroger is a big grocery chain by the way if you don't know it's the biggest It's the biggest they bought fries and they bought all that other they'd kink supers and they bought a whole bunch of They bought everything but they've kept for the most part the brand names that they were they've kept those on and not Changed in the Kroger, but a lot of times you're shopping at a Kroger store. You don't even know it You're buying Kroger shit off a shelf at a there's at that store their store brand stuff is not bad some of it too They have decent store brand show the Kroger actual Kroger brand shit is was I remember it being good I don't know about now, but that was 20 years ago when my dad lived out there So anyway, she goes to work at a cat as a cashier at the Kroger supermarket in Burlington Okay, and that's an important job back then the cashiers are your your eyes and your yeah, they're the face of your store the customers There's no scanner. They're typing it in there having a chat with the customers. They know everybody all you codes They know everything. Yeah, they were yeah, they're typing in. I mean, that's they got to be really good to not fuck up Yeah, that's impressive So she's really good at her job and by 1959. She is promoted to what was then the highest position available to a woman at the Kroger chain head checker head cashier Your sarcasm is true. Yeah, that's exactly right Unbelievable head cashier. You collect the receipts from the other fucking women and then hand them back. I that's her job now That's thanks a lot. Do everything that that guy doesn't want to do Yeah, people wonder why women are fucking pissed off sometimes and it's like shit like that probably Best shop in the store doesn't start with manager. No, or even assistant. Just head. Yeah Man, so 1962 at Kroger. She meets a man She's married obviously to James Taylor here. Yeah before Carly Simon got Adam and wrote songs so She it's 1962, but she meets a man named Raymond Carlton read our EID He's a manager here He'll eventually run his own store. He'll be the big manager of the store here He's a married man with kids as well of course But of course they haven't a fair now We don't know when this fair start this affair starts this fair start. So I just said I put the This is a fair start it's a when is this a fair start? I want to write it the photos wheel so They we don't know when it happened because they met in 62 a lot of people say it started in 63 And there's some accounts that put it as late as 1969 So either way, it still sounds like in the 60s first sight there to yeah there together Now but they're a lot they're in it a lot here from the mids either way you put it mid 60s on Now in 1966 and over the summer of 1966 Blanche does something very unexpected here She has not spoken to her father since she got married Yeah, she left the house and said fuck you Which also in the 50s and the 50s also makes me believe what she said it was true Because if he was just a gambler and and you know Fucked other women outside the daughters also come back for Christmas You come back for Christmas dad's a jerk don't let him get too drunk whatever, but unless he Pimped you out. You're not gonna so yeah sold you to cover his gambling debts That's like even grosser, isn't it? Yeah, and this isn't like now where people just disconnect from you know their families Is in the 50s nobody really did that but you know even no matter how terrible your family was you it's my favorite trend that we can do now Isn't it amazing it is great. Yeah, not have to talk to those people fucking yeah Yeah, well hey, I checked all around. There's no cords attached. I can just not talk to you about being a jackass I'm putting up with the shit for For years what are we doing crazy? So she reconciles with her dad She went to see him she made peace with him and started seeing you know seeing him on her little on or more of a regular basis here in the summer of 66 and also From her I have two little girls and come in near those kids. Yeah, it's more forgiveness than I've got to fucking spare Absolutely, one of her daughters is like 13 at this point or four that's 12 or something and not come in near my cat a chance No, we're near nope then on September 18th 56 PD Kaiser her father at 62 years old drops dead Okay, so I mean he's been he's a hardcore alcoholic and everything else So this is perhaps she was privy to some news about some health complications and she just wanted to Maybe he's with something and not have to deal with that for the rest of her life. Absolutely. That's super and 62 in 1966 not a bad run either Pretty good run. Yeah, the life expectancy was not 76 in 1962. It was way less. This is before 60 sick. I think it was about in the about that because I mean this is before A lot of the drugs that keep you alive cholesterol things heart things and the EPA and the EPA that too Yeah, environmentally it was terrible the smog the poison and water and shit like that and also just the The the shit people ate back then sure it was normal to smoke two packs a day in your place while you drank a bunch of booze and a Fried beef constantly every goddamn day. So that was normal and this is before like a lot of heart surgeries were Yeah, come up came up with yet or anything like that So the official cause of death is a heart attack and everyone goes that seems right sure Yeah, probably had a few grits. Yeah And he had to say he had symptoms to people said before he died he had violent stomach cramps and he was projectile vomiting and was kind of Delirious, which can be heart attack symptoms as well the stomach issues Devomiting things like that can fall can proceed a heart attack And also he was drinking a lot too. So they didn't know how much he was drinking and how much that contributed to it as well One weird thing though was his face turned bright blue At one point bright blue bright blue before he died his face was blue. So they thought maybe he just had lack of oxygen That kind of thing, but either way heart attack 62 in the ground. That's that PD is dead He's dead now Interesting now no Thursday, November 25th, 1970. It's Thanksgiving day Okay, now James Taylor's mother Else isla isla isla isla maybe yeah, well her Mrs. Taylor will call her yeah Mrs. Taylor isla isla isla isla Taylor whose blanche's mother-in-law On this day she dies on Thanksgiving day. Oh, no, so she knows she's 83 years old. I mean 83 Just a bummer that it's that day. It sucks. Yeah the families that were having you know She probably imagine I better stuffing was still good though. You know, I mean they ate it really she was dying and made this great stuffing still Damn it. So long as she didn't drop the gravy boat and we're all out of gravy that would be terrible. Show. Thanks a lot Hold on grandma Grandma wake up lady wake up grandma. You got to make her gravy We're gonna have to dip the mashed potatoes in your shirt grandma and drop the gravy You got you got to make more grandma We're out of gravy now. You're small. Wow. Who else knows how to make gravy? Anybody please? So yeah and this is She's 83. She's born in the 1800s Jesus they don't even ask what happened to her. They show up. She's a corpse. They take her out throw her in the ground. I mean You're really speaking to do that. Absolutely. Well, I hope I live long enough there. They do that this things from the 1900s throw it out I would love great sounds good Because that's about right that would be like about about 2000s if it's 270 and they just go hey throw great throw me in the garbage. I don't care It's from the 1900s. It gives a shit if I live that long. Yeah, I'd be thrilled for that But that's what they would do. They'd walk in and they go Jesus Christ. We're surprised you didn't turn the dust after she died and they pull her out and throw her in the ground. Holy shit. Um, so yeah, that's it. She'd throw, she, she dies, you know, James is sad and, uh, Blanche comforts him and that's that, you know, he'd, she just lost her father a few years back. Yeah. She knows the feelings right. They can commiserate. Um, in the early 1970s, now Blanche and Raymond Reed from the Kroger there, they've been carrying on an affair for years. Still going, they're still going strong by the early 70s through all of this stuff. She's also having an affair of the whole time. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. Nobody suspects it. They live very close to the vest kind of lives. Nobody's wild or whatever. They're, they're satisfying whatever each other needs and it just doesn't well. Somewhere in here, Raymond Reed divorced his wife actually during this whole thing. So during this, he's now divorced. So he's a single guy and he's still staying with her. And she is still married here. Um, then September of 1973 comes around. Okay. Um, in September 1973, James Taylor starts showing flu-like symptoms. He's 45 years old. Yeah. Um, so he's not an old man. He's not a super young man either, you know, we get sick. We get sick sometimes. So start showing flu-like symptoms on nausea weakness, you know, flu. That's late September, uh, 1973. October 2nd, 1973, James Taylor died. Oh, no. Yes. A week later dead, um, had a heart attack. Uh-huh. And basically they put it down to he had a heart failure after a pretty severe bout of the flu. Yeah. Which happens. That's sure. That is a, you know, thing that happens. Had it real bad. They thought the flu and a 40s. If you don't fucking take care of a flu, a cough, it will get worse. Yeah. You can drop dead from the flu or you can be LeBron James. That's what's so weird about your 40s. You Kyle Bush or LeBron, you can be, it's crazy. Even Kyle Bush. I'm talking, you can be like a, just an incontinent fat, doesn't move guy who looks 65 if you're 45 or you can still play in the NBA. It's the weirdest fucking age in the world. Yeah. To be there. So every time. So anyway, that's what happens there. So he's dead now. So she's had some tragedy happen, kind of follow around the last few years. So now she's a widow. Uh-huh. And she and Raymond Reed now date publicly because they're both single as well. Might as well. So they stuck they stuck together. And apparently this is the like the romance of her life. She's been with this guy and this has a real, you know, we had to sneak around for years for a decade and now we can be together and all that. We know how to love each other and we just get to do it in the open eyes. That's great. Exactly. So she said also she probably would have married Raymond except that she wanted to be stay in Burlington to be by her family. And that he as a manager and Kroger keeps getting transferred around to different stores. So she doesn't want to move move from town to town. Yeah. Cause he was in Durham for a bit. And she went with him to Durham for a brief stint in the seventies, but didn't like it went back. Um, he was in Durham and Winston Salem and all that kind of shit. Now, um, by the eighties, they're still together. But they're not really, they're not as in love as they were at one point. The luster's gone. It's a little gone. Yeah. The bloom is off the rose here. It's a little, will, willty now. She was telling her psychiatrist at the time that her feelings toward him had just just gone away from love. And now she can't stand him really. Oh, you know, we don't even like him. And now we like hate him now because he's, you know, that's how some people are. They're either love or hate. They don't really have a middle ground. There's no reason to hate just tired of them. Just been 20 years. And now he's available. And she's available. So, you know, yeah, it's kind of not as dirty anymore. You know, now it's legal. She's like, just, just fuck me in the back of the car in a motel parking lot for like a, for old time's sake. We'll get married to fun. Yeah. Hey, there's a nice lady just moved it down. So January of 1985, Blanche's house burns down in Berlin. Oh, no. Yeah. This is calamity Blanche here. It's just following her. She, it is insured, luckily for her. So she collects the insurance. And with that money, she buys a trailer. So now she's a trailer owner, which not bad. It's a bit. Yeah. That's fine. And she's like 50 to, like her kids are out of the house. Yeah. If you don't walk the night, it's a fucking house. She's a great option in your inner 50s and 60s. Yeah. She's downsizing at this point. Yeah. You know, that's all then February 1985, a month after she bought the trailer, the trailer burns down to. Okay. Yeah. She says that she basically tells the police that there's a guy. She doesn't know who she is. But there's been a, quote, a pervert stalking her for a while. There's a perverted fire bug. Some perverted fire bug that, yeah, that gets horny like David Berkowitz. He gets horny over fire. Starting a fire. And she said that it had to be this guy because she, he started being like stalking her and then her house burned down when she put down a coincidence. But now that this place burned down too, she's like, it's got to be this fucking guy burning my house down here. So then that year on October and October, October 16, 1985, Blanche Taylor, Sue's Croger and an employee of Croger for sexual harassment. What year? 1985. You got to really harass an 85, right? Oh, yeah. Well, this is when you started to be able to sue for that kind of shit. Okay. At least at this time, this is when like, that was like a big joke. If you watch any like SNL from the mid 80s, every goddamn sketch is like sexual harassment. That was the big hot topic of the day. But it was, this is about like, this is as early as it gets for that shit. Yeah, to actually have people beyond your side consequences and not say, hey, lighten up tuts. It was the old cheer up bitch in the 50s and 60s. That's what it was. Hey, take it as a compliment that I grabbed your ass. It means it's nice. You know, that's. Yeah. So they used to actually get me a coffee. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you let me take a look at it while you go over there. Now, he accuses a store manager named Robert Hutton, who everybody says she was having an affair with for a while by the law of sexual harassment. She files later a $15 million lawsuit against Kroger. Wow. Yes. Now, apparently, people said that Robert Jay Hutton, this guy she sued was the regional manager for the Piedmont triad. I don't know what the fuck that is, but he was a Kroger guy. I guess those stores. And apparently, everybody said they were having a relationship for a minute here. Can you, can you sexually harass your, uh, your muse? I mean, if they're your fucking underling, I guess you can't, I guess you had a wait till we're in the dirty motel. You can't. I mean, yeah. I guess if it's your underling, really at any point, they decide that it's not a good thing. It's now sexual harassment because you shouldn't have been fucking them to begin with. You're underling. That's the problem. Excellent points. Yeah. So yeah, I guess this is the reason that you don't fuck people that you work with. That's another reason why, you know, well, any was someone beneath you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. An equal, you know, hey, go after it. Have fun. If it's all fair game, if it's voluntary, if everyone's into it, yeah, I would think, how else does anybody meet anybody? I don't know. I just don't think it's right to fuck people at work. I think that's weird. I think I don't think it happens all the time. I think that's where most people who don't meet on the internet, meet a work, I think. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. That's where you spend the time with people. I'll bet there's more of fairs work. True. A bit more fairs happen, but you weren't her bossy. I mean, that's neither you could have fucked with either. No, that was an independent contractor. She worked in the box office. I'm a comic coming in once a month. But the, uh, I'll bet I'll bet a huge, I'll bet the vast majority of affairs happen start from work. Fuck yeah. Absolutely. Right. That's a number one answer. Social media. Fucking Bing, Bing, Bing. Pre-social media. Pre somebody you knew in high school contacting you were 100% of them. That's 100% now. That family viewed the only one answer. Yeah. That's it. Yes. Okay. Well, that's all. Yeah. And 85. That's where you met people if you were married. There's nowhere else you go, really, to meet people. So she fires a, files a suit against both him and the company. Now, they said that blanche alleged that he had a long history of making advances and fondling other female clerks as well. Oh, he, she claims in the suit that he reached up her dress, exposed himself. These are two of separate incidents reached up a dress one time, which seems pretty aggressive. Let me see what you got going on up there is pretty. Exposing himself is also pretty forward. They're probably on par, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think I, I think I'd rather have, if I'm a woman, I'd rather have someone expose themselves. Then grab. Yeah. Then grab me physically. Yeah. Because at least I have a shot. At least I can go. Yeah. And he'd probably pull his pants up and run away. And unless he's like a rapist in a parking lot, but like in a work environment, he probably wouldn't want you to-- - You can snicker at being assaulted. - No, no, you have to try to stab someone in the face for that, that's horrifying. But both of them, terrible, especially if it's from your boss. Your boss shouldn't show you his dick ever, that's terrible. Not cool. - Yeah, that's the worst day. - That's a bad day. Then in October '85, she says he grabbed her from behind in a conference room. She said that when she turned around, he was nude from the waist down and pointed at his dick and said, quote, are you ready for this? - Oh, it's just number one, insanely confident. And number two, absolutely a criminal act at this point in a goddamn office. - I can't be ready for this. - Are you ready for that, okay. - How can you? - I mean, even in a-- - Even in a-- - Walks up to like a Stunnel Duck. - Even in a sexual environment, like in a hotel room or in your own bedroom, I can never. - Imagine walking up with a shirt and probably a dress shirt too. - Probably a dress shirt with your dick. - Hopefully in his case, hang him below the bottom of it, I could only hope, saying. - Of course, sticking out of the fucking scene out of the flat. - Where the last button doesn't come out. - Yeah, I think he'll probably tuck him around the balls on the bottom. I think that's how he keeps it to the whole thing. - Are you ready for this? - God, he's got the confidence. - That's so much confidence, it makes me sick. And it's also, it makes me sick to my stomach, man. - Imagine that. - I've never considered that somebody couldn't be ready for this. Imagine doing that. Imagine walking up to another human being. - What do you think, huh? - I've never considered for a second that this might be overwhelming. - Overwhelming. - Have you still yourself for this? Are you ready for this? - Yikes. - Hold on, I better hold on to something. Good God. She, at this point, said, and this is a great move on her part, by the way, she grabbed his pants and underwear and ran off, which is the greatest comeback for that that's ever happened. - He stepped out of them. That's as brave as he gets. Black socks pulled up to halfway up his calves with dress shoes and a dress shirt tucked around his balls. That's how he walks up. - I hope he's wearing this. - Male garters that hold him up. - Oh, that would be great. Now that's the kicker if he's got those on. - That's the ticket. - Garters from that way, and then suspenders, clipped onto his boxer shorts as well. - Walked that shit out of his room, sir. - Well, she said, she grabbed his pants and underwear and fled from the store and that he had to leave in a meat cutter smock, which is hilarious. - Left the store, which is hilarious. - Not the room, because his ass would be showing in a meat cutter smock. See a guy, blood and viscer all over him. Well, it's been a long day. I'll see you later, he walks away, his ass is just showing. That would be, this is ridiculous. - This is police academy for Christ. - That's what it's turned into. Yeah, who's fucking Sergeant Harris is gonna come up and mess with us, call a common dotlessard, somebody. So Blanche never returned to work after that. And three months later filed a sexual harassment suit. She said it was very debilitating the whole thing. So in the lawsuit here, they said that she was, quote, completely alienated and antagonistic toward men now based on this. So that's part of her suffering here. She could no longer maintain meaningful contact with the opposite sex is what she said. She was afraid they were gonna ask if they were ready for something. - I mean, I don't want to discount what she went through here, but let's also pepper in what she went through as a child. And this is the trigger. - Yeah, yeah, no, it's shocking. - That is shocking, no, she, so that's what she said. And she said, you know, that's, I can't have contact. - I can't work anymore. - And so the, the Hutton guy was forced to resign, which in the '80s is a huge win because in the '80s, they'd go, well, that means at least the company believed that happened. They made him resign, but either way, it's hard because they were having an affair too. So it's, I mean, she, so he would know if she was ready for it technically or not. - Right. - Which is certainly overstepped in a lot of different ways. - Absolutely, or as we get into Blanche or she, we don't know, that's the thing with Blanche. You never know what Blanche was done. - Yeah, I mean, I hate to disc, this all sounds very specific. I mean, we got specific things, but then everybody else was like, they're having an affair for months before that. What are you talking about? Like, that's what a lot of these store employees said during the lawsuit, so it was kind of, it was tough. So, well, who knows here? We'll find out. Now, at the same time here, she is seeing obviously still seeing Raymond Reed and has a new boyfriend as well. A Baptist, or he's a United Church of Christ minister, named Dwight Moore, the Reverend Dwight Moore. They met during an Easter sunrise service in April of '85. - Resurrected her love. - That's right, that's absolutely right. She's gonna make something else rise too. So they met here, now he's divorced. Alrighty, this guy. He has a pastor of a small United Church of Christ congregation out in rural Alamance County. So they started just meeting for meals and she's not married to Raymond Reed. I mean, she's been with him for 20 years, but technically these are two single people. - Okay. - And so they don't, they don't have to hire us. He's it that way. - Exactly, they don't have to hide or anything. So they start going to meals and she's a church-going widow lady and he's a divorced country preacher. And you know, they're gonna find each other about the same age, age-appropriate people and this seems like a nice thing that they found each other. And she at this point, by the way, and we took a little bit of flack, people not understanding that we were joking. A few weeks ago when we had a like a 27 year old guy who was hanging out with a woman in her mid 50s for money obviously, that relationship was and we were making jokes about that. And some of our audience got upset about that 'cause they were like, "Hey, I'm 55 or whatever. What are you talking about?" And it's like, well, you know what we're talking about? - I know what I was talking about. - We're joking. Yeah, we're making jokes. That's the point of the show. Yeah, we're joking. So in the mid 80s, someone over 50 is way different than someone over 50 now. - When they look, they look it. - Yeah, now a days, where's people in their 50s that look like they're 40? When they're 40, so they're very young. Back then, people in their 50s embraced looking older. - My grandmother, my grandmother. - Old people when they were in their early 60s. - Was 56 in, I don't know what year, but that's all I see or ask. And 56 to me was so elderly because she looked 85. That's what I mean. And it's the way they dress, the way they do things. She has gray hair and the perm. In the perm, she's got the gray hair. She's got the big glasses like the old ladies has. - She's where an ass scot with the chain, with the glasses chain. She dresses in white lacy shirts like a church lady. She looks like she's like now, if you saw her go in, she probably 72, but she was like 53. So it's very interesting here. - I never saw my grandma's cleavage ever. She never dressed like a going out lady. She was always, - My grandmother was a huge slut. Popping cleavage everywhere. - You saw Teddy? - No, absolutely not. - But she always had a fucking ass scot or a broach. - She's like grandmother, Italian grandma would show a little cleavage, but she's Italian. I mean, you know what I mean? - I mean, yeah, they were a shirt of enacovato. - They're not shy about, but I never did. - Yeah, they're not shy. My other grandmother, I don't think she had any body at all. I don't think she was just a, you know, I think she was just smooth under there. - Just a head. - Just an old lady, that's all. - Just a head that yelled at me. - Just an old lady who shouted racial slurs. That's all she was, I don't know. Yeah. So she, you know, she's hanging out with this reverend white more and she's seen as very grandmotherly. - That's it. - She is a grandmother at this point and she acts like it and looks like it. - Sure. - New year's eve, December 31st, 1985. Okay, Raymond Reed and Blanche are spending New Year's eve together. She's, it's a real night. She's making a pot of homemade potato soup. So. - Nice. - Yeah. - Fucking love a potato soup, potato and soup together. Count me in. - That's always creamy. - That's delicious. Love it. - It's always so good. - Yeah. - So good, so good. So just a nice evening in with a pot of tomato or potato soup, it sounds great. The problem is by the early morning hours of January 1st, 1986, Raymond Reed, who is usually not a sick guy. He just doesn't really get sick. He's a guy who can eat anything and not get sick. He doesn't get a lot of colds. One of those guys is really in bad shape. He's got horrible nausea. He's vomiting. He's got diarrhea. - Oh. - Yeah. He's like you if she put like five eggs in the soup. - Oh. - Essentially this is like a darn pike chicken egg soup. - Oh man. (laughing) - That's the worst, man, again, of that. What's in this? Well, potatoes, turnpike chicken. So everything, bags. So he gets very sick. And he's gonna kind of stay pretty sick for the next few months. - Oh no. - And he's a guy who never missed work. He's known to never miss a day of work. And he, all of a sudden, misses over the next three months. He misses like four weeks of work. I'll put it in together. He just goes through periods of being sick. He'd be okay. He'd recovery, go back. Then he'd be sick again. And so I mean, and he's not a guy that likes to go to the doctor and people are telling him, you might have a stomach tumor or something. You got to get this checked out. Like you could have a gastrointestinal problem here. 'Cause I mean, he'd be for days. He wouldn't be able to keep food down. - Yeah. - Terrible. And then he'd come back and say, "I must have caught a bug. I don't know." - Even when I'm egg poisoned, it's like two hours of. - Yeah. - Insane sick, but it's never like that. - It's never. - He's a blood and stuff. - Yeah, yeah. And it looked tough and he was like, I mean, he's like 50 at this point too in his early mid 50s. So he's thinking, Christ, I'm probably just my body falling apart. But it's all just getting old type of thing. He takes it as he couldn't quite make out the menu up at McDonald's there like he used to. - What was it say for the Big Mac? Was that 419? Okay. Having a problem. - The Mac looks like Big Mac now. - That's a big, what is it? Big Mac, you guys got there. So May 30th, 1986 here, that's when he finally goes to the hospital to get checked out. So I mean, he like five whole months, he went back and forth being sick and not feeling good before he went to the hospital. This is the Wesley Long Hospital in Greensboro. And he went to see his doctor, Dr. Norman Garrett. And he tells the doctor that a week earlier he'd gotten violently ill while eating and hasn't been able to keep solid food down since. And he said, this has been going on for months on and off, basically. I keep getting these things. So they call it acute gastroenteritis at first. Because he says that the doctor said he has dehydrated, he's nausea, vomiting, he needs all the criteria. - I think that medicine calls something like that acute because acute mathematically means small. And this is, this means extreme out of nowhere. - Yeah, I guess it means targeted at an area I would assume. - And out of nowhere. - And I don't know where, yeah, yeah, that too. Yeah, it's got medically and it definitely has different. Medical definitions are way different than regular definitions to the way they're used. - That word though, makes me fucking not give a shit. - Yeah. - But it means you better give a shit. - It means very bad. - Yeah. - Now, they fellow Kroger employee, who knows both of them. Obviously Raymond and Blanche here. Her name is Gloria Head. She visits and notices something in Blanche's purse, which was a little Tupperware. By the way, in the 50s or 60s, Blanche also sold Tupperware. She had Tupperware parties and shit with a lot of the women dead. She has a Tupperware, a little Tupperware of red gelo in her purse. So I mean, grandma carries gelo, who cares, right? But the doctor had noted that Raymond Reed told him he started vomiting the night before after eating gelo. - Oh. - But I mean, that doesn't, he could have been sick and then that's when it came out, we don't know. So she just noticed that. She was like, why'd you keep the gelo if it made him sick? - Right. - We don't know, it made him sick. Juniv 86, okay. He keeps getting worse, Raymond Reed, while he's in the hospital. He's not doing well. He gets worse and worse and worse. They revised the diagnosis to multiple systems failure. - Which is up in the ante a bit. - And out of nowhere is a horrifying. - Acute upping of the ante right there. It's not good. It's not good. Listen to his symptoms. Okay, excessive nausea and vomiting, lose stools. Don't want that. Skin rash. Okay. Adema dehydration, bone marrow damage. That's inside your bones. - The bone marrow is damaged. Inside it, blood cell abnormalities, electrolyte imbalance, progressive shortness of breath, respiratory failure, racing heartbeat, plummeting blood pressure, kidney shut down, and numbness and tingling in his hands and feet. - What's a gargling water from the Congo or something? - Is this. - Yeah, fucking Flint, Michigan, 10 years ago. This is, yeah, he drinks from a puddle in Bangladesh. That's how it works. - It's the only water drink. - It's the only one, it's the only, he's got to get it. It comes, it's tough to get. It's tough to get, one company makes it, and you gotta shake it 'cause it's chunky, but there's like a loose nail in there once in a while. - If you don't mix it up, the bottom, the bottom half, you gotta chew. - Ooh, you gotta chew, yeah. Every once in a while, if I just find like a child's toe in there or something, you go, "Well, that's what's in there." - The fuck? - Why they're healthy people? - That's a crazy diagnosis. - That's crazy. That is like by June 1st, '85. That's what's going on. Then by June 5th, he already six, I'm sorry. June 5th, 1986, about a week later, he's feeling much better now. - Oh. - His body's starting to recover here. Things look up briefly. The doctor tells Blanche and Raymond that, you know, he's only gonna need a few more days in the hospital and he's probably gonna be struggling to go home and he's just- - It's just bonding. - Yeah, whatever we're doing is working, your body's coming back here. Then over the next week, he gets worse instead of getting better. Plummots, the doctor said it was life-threatening and ships him off to a bigger hospital now. - Oh my God. - Yeah, out of his care, this is June 13th, 1986. He ends up at North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. - Oh. - Now this isn't a different county, by the way, here, from where we were. This is in, yeah, this is a different county. So now the doctor there, Dr. Robert Hamilton, is a specialist in internal medicine and nephrology. And he treated Raymond Reed at the hospital and said that Raymond was admitted with a number of symptoms including a raspy voice, severe swelling in his lower extremities, anemia, low-well white blood cell count, a rash over his lower extremities, white patches in his mouth, very poor bowel sounds. I mean, he's farting, but they're not good ones, you know what I mean? Like I like a nice, bro, give me a trumpet rip. These are kind of sad. - You know what those sound like? - Bowels, yeah. - That's when it claps and it's good. - Yeah, like it's leaking out like air out of a, like a basketball you ran over. - It's like a wet water balloon. - Not great. - Yeah. - Wow, very poor bowel sounds. I've never heard that as a medical thing on this 700 something episodes of this show. It's never come up before. Difficulty breathing and signs of kidney failure. - Okay. - So he continues to get worse and worse and worse here. They come up with a new theory. Okay, now I hope I'm going to pronounce this even close to right. This is Guillabaret syndrome. It's spelled different. It's spelled G-U-I-L-L-A-N-B-A-R-R-E accent. So that's how, that's French. I guess that's why it's Guillab, 'cause that's the like pronunciation of it. I had to look that up. That is a syndrome, that's the diagnosis they give him. Guillabaret syndrome. It's a neurological condition that causes all of these things basically. - Yeah. - And it looks like it has a pretty good umbrella control over the whole body here. - It's with your brain, right? - That's your neurological, your brain, and the pathways, and everything start fucking up. - Everything fuck up now, yeah. The main computer on your car goes, and next thing you know, your gas tanks popping open and your windshield wipers are going, you're like, what's happening right now? Yeah, so that's the theory now. Now I looked up this to get a little bit deeper. This is according to what the Mayo Clinic.com here says about this syndrome. A condition in which the body's immune system attacks the nerves. - Oh my God. - Sounds bad. It can cause weakness, numbness, or paralysis. Weakness and tingling in the hands and feet are usually the first symptoms. These sensations can quickly spread and may lead to paralysis. And it's most serious form. The syndrome is a medical emergency. Most people with the condition need treatment in a hospital. They say it's a rare syndrome and the exact cause is not known. That's today, even less known 40 years ago, obviously. They said, but two thirds of people have symptoms of an infection in the six weeks before the symptoms of this syndrome begin. And those infections can include respiratory or gastrointestinal infections and things like that. Either way, the diagnosis is your fucked. You're fine. It can even be caused by the Zika virus, even. Oh shit. I can trigger this as well. There's no known cure for it. Several treatment options can ease symptoms and help speed recovery. Most people recover completely, but some serious instances can be fatal. So frightening is what this sounds horrible. Your body just decides, "I'm gonna fuck with you." - Look, at that time, what are you gonna do? - That's not a lot of, what are you gonna do? - That's your body's hailed. - It really is. I mean, this is, it's a lot. So they said. say recovery may take up to several years, but most people are able to walk again six months after symptoms for you. - Able to walk again. This is, I came in here with diarrhea. Now we're talking about, I might not walk again. - Now we're talking about here. It's your wheelchair. Now, this is how it works. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. - Hold on. - Those are very unwell sounding bowels. - I just had Arby's earlier. That's what I'm here for. This is crazy. You want to put me in a wheelchair? - Joe, and now you're talking about, I may not walk again. - Holy shit. So they say also, some people may have lasting effects such as weakness and numbness or fatigue. So this can carry on. - Good, God. - Basically, anything it ranges from recover pretty quickly to drop dead to being paralyzed, like anywhere in between there. It's a very vast-- - All because your brain just chose it. - Just chose to, yeah, chose to your motherboard fried, man. I should have started going against itself. June 21st, 1986. This is 16 days after he was almost better and ready to go home, okay? Now there's a code blue, he crashes. Code blue, so they intubate him and put him on a ventilator. - Wow. - Okay, over the next few days, he becomes nearly completely paralyzed. - Fuck. - Okay, now, so they try a procedure called plasma ferrorist, ferrisis. Plasma ferrisis, which is basically washing your blood. I feel like this is what Keith Richards had done every three weeks while he's on the road. Keep him going this long. - This is gonna be a whole new batch, everybody. It is what, put, now I put the heroin in the one, put the washer in the other, and it'll swell around, man, it'll be good high. Wash your blood, like there's brushes or something. - Yeah, I don't know why I pictured tiny, tiny, microscopic elves doing it, like while they're singing. - Me too. - Well, to that or eat a tide pod, James. - One of the choices, give it a shot, why not? And he improves a little bit. Okay, then, June 27th and 28th, 86 here. A urine sample is taken from Raymond Reed and it goes to the lab. So, the problem is, this urine sample, where they're just looking for anything in his body that could be causing this, the results never reach the doctor that is treating him. This is just bureaucratic fuck up here. Well, it turns out that, they don't find out how this happened to later, but there was a resident responsible for this, as hospitals run on almost free labor a lot, as these residents, they depend on them a lot, and the residents obviously need it to become doctor, so it all works out, but this resident here, they rotate them a lot back, I don't know if now, but at least back then they were, and the he was rotated to a different hospital the way the day the result came in, and the new person coming in to fill their spot, didn't know anything about it, and it just got thrown in a drawer, and nobody ever saw the results. - Is that an avargue now guy? You just looked at it and said, I concur? - Yeah, there you go. He just put it away and was like, I don't know what the hell this is, this is before my time. Fuck, that's the way it works, so that is fucking horrible, so no one ever saw what happened, okay, with the results, and we'll find out in a minute here. The problem, well, as I'll tell it now actually, the problem with the results are, they say that he has, quote, quite elevated levels of arsenic in his urine, - Yeah. - Which is not good. - Which is not good. - From arsenic. - I would assume. - Yeah. - That's the only way. - Yeah, so July through September 86, okay, he gets better. He gets his movement back. He can breathe on his own, and he's starting to do better, 'cause he was in a seriously blocked, things like I see. - Intubated and fucking paralyzed. - He's doing so much better that Blanche asked the doctor, if could I please bring him? I know he's had to have all the, you've had to give him certain things, but can he have food from home now? The poor guy misses his home cooking, and he's in a, how do you expect him to recover if he can't even eat the foods he loves and gets a strength up? And the doctor said, well, of course, yeah, if he's strong enough to eat, then why not? I'd rather have him have home cooking, he's used to there. So she says, of course. So she does, and he's recovering, and she's sitting there by his side, holding his hand, talking to him, even when he couldn't talk. I mean, get putting blankets on him, is he warm enough? Let's get him some socks, all that kind of thing, is he eating enough, is he warm enough? As you would want your significant other to help you with, you know what I mean? The hospital food went untouched, all the cooking was from, she'd bring home, she'd cook the night before, and then bring home all the meals, or bring to all the meals to the hospital. And everything like that, she brought iced tea, frozen yogurt, milkshake, soups, banana pudding, all that kind of thing. And then also, at some time in here, he signs his will making her a one-third beneficiary of his estate. - One-third? - One-third, then he has two kids too. So I think you chopped it up like that. So, I mean, yeah, he's sitting by her side. She's sitting by her side, showing her devotion to him, and he decides to repay her that way, just in case things go badly for him. - Sure. - End of September, 1986, he suffers another setback. - Damn it. - The doctors had started talking about sending him home like a couple of days before, and then it starts to get bad again. He'd come back, and now he's on death's door again, which is crazy. So this has happened like four different times where he might be able to go home soon, and then all of a sudden he takes a bad time. So he's essentially been in the hospital for like five months at this point. - Oh, horrible. - October 1st, 1986. This is the time this Alisa Hutchins, who's the head nurse in the ICU, which is much better than head cashier, Kroger's, by the way. - Well, yeah. - It's a big one. - That she makes better money. - Yeah, it's a very important job. She says the last time she ever saw Raymond looking really well was October 1st. He was in the intermediate care unit, was off the critical list, and Blanche was right there, feeding him his beloved banana pudding, that she makes for everybody, and all the neighbors love her banana pudding. She brings it to the bake sales and the church clubs and all that shit. October 3rd, 1986, two days later, this Hutchins visits Reed again, the nurse, and he's in acute respiratory failure. - Again. - Again, distress. And he's scared for his life, and he said to her, "Please help me or I'm going to die." That's what he said to the nurse. October 4th through October 6th, 1986, okay. Raymond Reed's son, Steven, who was a student at East Carolina, visited his father, and he found that his father had eaten breakfast, and he stayed through the fifth and headed back to school. Then on Monday, October 6th, Blanche called the son and said, "You better get back here as fast as you can." He's taken a turn for the worse. He said that when he walked in that evening, and he had seen him on Sunday, and this is Monday night, he said, "I barely recognized him." - Oh, he looked at that. - He said, "He looked like he gained 100 pounds overnight 'cause he was so swollen, swollen. His whole body is face." He said, "This is horrifying." Steven said, "His eyeballs were even starting to swell and his skin was splitting." - Splitting. What does that? Like you're the hulk or the wolf man or something. Like your skin stretches a lot. - He's got teen wolf in there. - Think about that. - Yeah. - Yeah, dude. This is like, "Why would it be slitting?" - I don't know if this is like some, you know. - I didn't know there was anything that could do that. - Goddamn it, the goddamn horror guy who does, who made the hectic squad for scanners. No, no, the Goddamn special effects guy. Tom Savini. This is like some, like a Tom Savini creation, like swelling with the skin splitting. Like this is horrifying. - Only time I've ever heard of skin exploding like that is like falling off a building. I know that, I didn't know that you could just get sick and expand so much your skin reps. - I mean, normally, I guess you would expand at a slow rate so your skin would have time to catch up. But I guess in one day if you go from normal, you can't go from your skin, can't catch up. - Yeah, you can't go from me to fat Albert and then it's like that to expect it to hold it all. - Women don't get all of their belly for nine months of pregnancy the day they turn pregnant. They would probably split and explode. So yeah, then October 7th, 1986, a doctor said that Raymond Reed was progressively weaker and unable to continue his breathing on his own well enough to sustain life. So he was on heart drugs and a ventilator. He could only communicate with his eyes like once, once for yes, twice for no type of shit. In the early afternoon, he coded again. They did CPR. They tried to put emergency drugs through his heart. They did everything and it was too late and he dies that day on October 7th, 1986. - This is the toughest sum that you've ever heard of. - And the worst year I've ever heard. of. He's the worst 10 months I've heard of a human being living. That's awful, awful, fuck he fought. And it's the, what was I, how did I pronounce it? The guillain, big air, whatever the fuck it was. It's that syndrome is what cause of death there. So right after he's pronounced dead, several witnesses heard Blanche say something here. She was obviously distraught. And she said they talked about, you know, maybe we do an autopsy to find out exactly what went on in there. And she's crying and says, we cannot have an autopsy. He's been through too much. He's been poked and prodded enough. Leave him alone. You poked that swollen man. He's going to explode. You leave him alone. He's been, yeah, been through enough. Um, god damn. So yeah, Steven said that Blanche told her this is Raymond Sutton. Steven said that Blanche said, if any doctor asks us if we want to do an autopsy, let's say no. Your dad's been through enough pricking and poking. And if they didn't find out what was wrong with him in six months in the hospital, then it's their loss. Like what, what are they, how they going to find out now anymore if they couldn't figure it out in six months in the hospital? Well, they weren't looking on his insides. Then that's probably why. Because they can't why cut his fucking chest figure and I can't really take organs out and stare at him in the light and shit and really get a good getter at them. They're lost. They're lost. So they bury him because I mean, he has a cause of death that's he's been in the hospital. It's not a surprise. So they bury him at the Pine Hill cemetery in Burlington here. And that's that no autopsy, no autopsy. No, they figured they knew what happened to him. They just they didn't know how it happened, but they didn't know if they could find that out from an autopsy. Anyway, as they were like, his brain control deleted. That's it. It's all gone now. So the nurses said that Raymond had become their favorite, their favorite patient. Um, one said, quote, I can't explain why I don't always get very close to my patients, but we all loved Raymond. That's nice. He was that kind of guy. Um, now, remember I said how she signed over his estate? Yeah, apparently here while Raymond was laying in this happen while he was in the hospital bed during one of his streaks where he was unable to speak. So Blanche's lawyer from her sexual harassment suit referred her to another lawyer to prepare a will for Raymond. Blanche handed the guy some notes. Uh, she said a nurse had written them and asked him to draft a will and a power of attorney based on these notes that she handed the guy. He drafted the documents and brought them to the hospital. Now Raymond Reed couldn't talk. All he could do is not his head and squeeze a hand for yeah. So the nurses helped him interpret everything. And the lawyer asked in front of witnesses, the nurses, whether Reed understood that leaving his property to Blanche meant, you know, he was taking it out of his away from his sons. Basically, and whether he wanted Blanche to share in the insurance money and he not had yes to both. Okay. He couldn't hold a pen. So the lawyer signed his name for him in front of a notary and two witnesses that he wanted him to do that. Sure. Sure. You can do that. Um, so that's what he did. That's how this happened while he was unable to sign his name. Yeah. So Blanche, obviously, that's this is dead man number two, three, if you count her dad in her life. Hard breaking. Um, so I mean, but you got to move on. You can't just sit back and let life kick you in the ball today. Well, especially if you're already going out with another guy, too. That's, yeah, you already got another boy. That's kind of hard. So yeah, now she just takes up with the good reverend white more and they begin seeing each other publicly. Now it's really out in the open, you know, they're too, too nice older people that are finding each other and everyone thinks it's sweet essentially. That's it. Look at them. Um, yeah, he says that he occasionally drove, by the way, Dwight would occasionally drove Blanche to the hospital to see Reed and he accompanied her to the funeral, which is Balsey. Oh, shit. That's a wild one. Hey, everybody. If you, you know, if your spouse dies, don't bring your, another, don't bring a hook up to the funeral. Yeah, that's a little weird. Yeah, that's just too much. Uh, in front of the kids in front of the kids. Um, yeah, that's wild. So I mean, she could say he's my pastor though. That's the thing. Yeah. He's helping me through this hard time. My, my, uh, spiritual advisor. Exactly. Helping me out here. Um, now he says, this is, uh, old reverend more here. I was very much involved with Blanche during the time of Raymond Reed's illness. She assured me it had never been a romantic attachment between her and Raymond. They've been together for 20 years, not romantic. They're just never just hang out buddies. They're like the golden girls basically. They just sit around each cheesecake gossip. You know, we had one one day and he said one day, put that yeah, that's all. So he said that they had just been friends and co-workers. She said their friendship was based on the fact that she led him to Jesus. Oh, she let him somewhere where he screamed Jesus, but it wasn't that church. I'll tell you that much. Yeah. He was yelling Jesus. Um, so here he is, um, you know, this guy and he believes this, he said. So as far as he knows, they're just too devoutly religious people who found each other and they, they've both known loss. That's all. So maybe they'll get married, right? Wedding bells on the horizon for these two. Wow. It is. Well, yeah, well on November 4, 1986, Dwight buys a $571 ruby and diamond engagement ring for Blanche. How about that? That's a few grand now. Not bad. Nothing. Nothing. No, no, not at all. And they planned to marry, but the wedding kept getting postponed. Um, November 1988, they were on their way to get their marriage license, like I'm the way to the courthouse to get their license and he threw up. Oh, and she laughed and said, isn't this something we're trying to get our marriage license and you're so sick you can't even stay in the car. Are you trying to get out of this? What do you pretend and you're sick to get out of this? You don't want to marry me and breaking laws. Um, by the way, during this time, Blanche has some more calamities here. Um, she's diagnosed with breast cancer. She tells him in 1987. So they push the wedding back a little bit. Um, July 29, 1987, Blanche accepts a settlement from Kroger. Really? And eight for fifth, they out of court. It isn't for 15 million. $275,000. She gets out of them. That's quite the settlement. That's for them. That's a go away. Yeah. And for her, that's exactly what it is. That's, that's enough money where she'll shut the fuck up, but not enough that it really affects their bottom line. And it also says kind of that they're not, they don't believe in her. That's what I mean. Yes. They don't know. I mean, they're the, they're the defendant. So I mean, that's not shocking. And she also doesn't, it's also, uh, now get out of our hair. But guess what, you're probably gonna have to work again. Exactly. Exactly. Or maybe while at her age, though, we put that in the, in some investments and stuff, you might be able to live off that for a while. In 87 past her age, not much. For another 25 years, probably if she had some mouse, a little 401k saved up her insurance from an 87 to the 401k exists. I don't know what I'm sorry. I don't know. They had some kind of, some kind of saving. I don't have some other income at some point. That ain't enough. Yeah. No, I mean, it's tough. I don't know. You could probably pull that off back. Then I bet stretch it. If you lived in a trailer that you all maybe. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, you weren't going on the extravagant vacations with social security kicking into in 10 years. You could probably make that just do fine for you back then. I don't know. I'm not going to live larger anything. But, you know, so, um, yeah. And then she develops that she says, now this is what she tells white and mysterious intestinal ailment again. Oh, starting to think is there something in the house, you know what I mean? The five doctors. I'm like, where do you live? What's going on here? She's got cancer. Do you have like a furniture that's just molded like just like a recliner that's just a pulsed mold, essentially. Is that what you're doing here? Do you live on nephrost or Bob Ross's? Yeah. Yeah. What are you doing? Are you? What are you holding the fucking? The bat of holding the turpentine bucket or whatever? Yeah. So she, uh, she said that this required two surgeries as well. Oh, and she pushes the wedding date a little bit more. So November 26, 1988. They're supposed to get married that day, but it has to be canceled because this is when blanche has to be hospitalized for nausea and vomiting. Oh, something's going on yet. It's not good. Now April 1989, the wedding finally happens. Here we go. She becomes blanche chisers, Taylor Moore. So buddy, uh, they went to where everyone goes on their honeymoon. Uh-huh. New Jersey. Is that right? Oh, yeah. Everyone knows everyone. I believe it's probably Trenton. Everybody wants to the glories of Trenton for their honeymoon, the romance, the injury. Probably Atlantic City. Yeah. Probably Atlantic City or some shit or the shore. It's April. You're not really going to the shore. So it's probably Atlantic City. I don't know where else you go in April. I don't know where you'd go in New Jersey for for honeymoon in April. I don't know. So anyway, they go there and, um, here they are, married, a preacher and his wife and everything else. Five days later, they get home, okay? um she comes home with curtains for their house. Yeah. And they're home now. The only were there a few days and a chicken salad sandwich for him. That's nice. She came home with curtains and stopped and grabbed him lunch too. And that nice pretty good day. Yeah. Um two hours later he gets very sick. Uh-huh. Okay. Very nauseous, nauseous, relentless vomiting, but chicken salad. I'd want to know where it came from. That could be some bad mayonnaise in there and that'll put you down. To bring that home from Jersey. Yeah. So he's admitted to the Alamance County Hospital again. Yeah. Now one of the things he says to his doctors, because they're like, would you ingest what's going on? I mean, I had a sandwich, but I don't think that was bad. He said, you know what, though, I've been using, because it's April lately, I've been getting my lawn ready and my property ready for the summer. And I've been using a lot of chemicals in the lawn to kill weeds and shit. I might have inhaled a bunch of it basically. Yeah. They don't even know that Roundup's toxic at this point. Fuck no. They're like, this is the best. Put it on. Yeah. Put it on your salad. They're like, fuck him. Go ahead. It's awesome. Spray it right on there, like a balsamic vinaigrette. It's wild. How much of that stuff was just out there? Oh, just everywhere. We don't know. Still in the ground. Still out there. We don't hold none. Fuck no. No. Find out and fucking 2045. Yeah. Well, let's blame cancer on other things. Poison that we've been having put on us for a long time. We've just been walking around spraying and our food for the last three years. Couldn't be that. Couldn't be that. Couldn't be. Put it into a fine mist and spray in the air. It's real fine. So it can really get in your nasal passages. Or you could get to the end of the nozzle and spray it into a stream where it just bounces up to your face. That's what you really want. That's good. Put it in a pressurized jug that you just carry around. Yeah. There you go. Christ. So they move him between the Elements County Hospital and the North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston Salem, then to the North Carolina Memorial Hospital, which I don't like the word memorial in a hospital ever. I don't want anybody's. Yeah. I'm still here. I don't want the honor of somebody that died here. Memorial means dead. Don't put that in the hospital name. I don't want that here. That sounds bad. How about life hospital living still alive? North Carolina still alive hospital in Chapel Hill doing great. Carolina fixer hospital. Fixer. Feeling good. Fix everything. Feeling good. Lewis hospital. Maybe one of those. Where he deteriorates. He deteriorates now. Dwight. He told them I've been working with a shitload of these herbicides killing my weed. So I mean, there's that. So he gets transferred back and forth and he keeps getting worse and nobody can figure out what the hell is wrong. Now the big teaching hospital in Chapel Hill, North Carolina Memorial Hospital. It's a big hospital and they tend to go through things, especially these teaching hospitals because they're showing the kids how to go through everything. They're young people and aren't really kids. Then he gets worse. The doctors, he's got a bunch of doctors who are also working with the hospital's toxicologist and they order a toxicology screen specifically to check for the poisons from the herbicides. See if that's what's overwhelming. Now the test results come back and this is fucking crazy. The doctor says that he has, quote, "twenty times the lethal dose of arsenic in his system." Twenty times the lethal dose. He said it's, quote, "the most ever in a living patient in this hospital." Wow. Never seen a person with that much arsenic who's not dead. I want to give you some good news, bad news. I'm impressed. Yeah, you are. Bad news. It's strong. I'm not going to be impressed. Here's you're an ox. Let me tell you that. So this, he should have been dead basically. They're like, I don't know how you're alive, but you have enough arsenic to kill a horse in your system. You got enough to kill 20 of you. Yeah, 20 of you. But apparently he is a real strong guy and he lost the full use of his hands and feet and he was still suffering complications even after everything. So from a hospital bed here, basically the hospital and the state bureau of investigation called the police. They interviewed Dwight from the hospital bed and he gave them the detail here. He mentioned because they're just talking about his past and whenever and he said, well, yeah, my wife's ex-boyfriend died of that G.A. Barry A or whatever the fuck is, syndrome. All the biniers killed him. That's what it was. That wasn't powder on top. That's the problem. It wasn't powdered sugar. So they went really and they know that that looks a whole lot like arsenic poisoning and symptoms for that, the cops. So as soon as they heard that, then they basically, the cops said they looked at each other and smiled and were like, hold on now. Yeah. Back this fucking train up and they also learned that Blanche had tried to make herself the principal beneficiary of Dwight's pension as well. Oh, and they were like, uh-oh. It's fucking crazy. Dwight said, your body swells. You retain fluid. Your kidney shut down. nausea turns you inside out at least four times during the week that I was at my lowest. The doctors called my family to come to the hospital and told them I was dying. Give this man his last rites and say goodbye. That is the craziest horrible. That sounds terrible. It sounds awful. The other way to die. Yeah. Jesus. That sounds the hearth. It's months of pain and hearth. It's fucking bad. You explode internally. Yeah. It just eats you and wow. And then they said, well, we'd like to do some hair testing because hair is when you can, if you get some hair, you can tell exactly when they got, is the way your hair grows at a steady pace. They can tell exactly when you got doses of arsenic. It's like, it brings it in there. Yeah. It's rings in a tree essentially. They can really get it down. And they said, you know, why is your hair so short? Did you just what you cut your hair? And she said, well, he said, yeah, that's because my wife came to the hospital with her brother, who's a barber and insisted that I get a haircut. What? So they can't. So they had to, they had to test his pubes. Oh, she didn't think to shave his balls. She forgot that part. He gave yourself haircuts down below. Never, sir. Perfect. Perfect. Let's go. No, no, you get some of the longest one. No, no, he says it's like getting Santa Claus in a leg lock down there. Everybody bring it and bring in the book. Weasers, right? It's all right. So the investigators, they, you know, they're talking to him. He's telling them of the other of Reed's death. And because when they said, do you know anybody that Blanche has known who's died under unusual circumstances? And he said, yeah, the RX wife friend there. And so the last time this is funny, the Reverend Moore talks to Blanche when he's sick, he's still sick from arsenic. And they've already told him what's going on. Uh-huh. And he said, what happened Blanche? What's going on? And she said, quote, I'll tell my side at the right time. What? Which is not the answer you want out of your wife at that point? That is not what I asked you, babe. No. So then in 1989, they get the back hose out. They get the bulldozers and the shovels out. Yeah. Because they're going to go a digging. Digging folks up. We're going to dig a bunch of people up, by the way. This is wow. It gets way bigger. Uh, they have court orders and exume the bodies of PD Kaiser or father. James Taylor, her first husband, Raymond Reed, the boyfriend and Ila Taylor, the mother-in-law. What? They pulled her out too. Pulling everybody out. Um, they also pulled Joe Mitchell, a 57-year-old meat cutter at the same Kroger store where Blanche once worked. Wow. Anybody that's died in her orbit, we're pulling them all. They're also, they want to exume Ina P. Vincent, a 74-year-old whom Blanche visited with gifts of food during her final days of an illness in 1977. Holy shit. John W. Reiber, a 77-year-old who attended Dwight Moore's church before Reiber's death the year before and Mabel Parsons, a 61-year-old Kroger cashier who died last year. Blanche just didn't like the looks of her, you know, how it is with these Kroger cashiers. So June 13, 1989, here comes fucking Raymond Reed out of the Pine Hill cemetery. Wow. He has exhumed the body, taken to the medical examiner's office here in Chapel Hill, autopsy performed. They find, quote, clearly recognizable measlines, M-E-E-S lines across the fingernails of both hands and the toxicology report indicates a concentration of arsenic in Reed's liver tissue 30 times higher than one might see in an average individual who's not having a significant exposure to arsenic. The arsenic in his brain tissue was approximately 67 times higher than that expected in a normal individual. Oh boy 67 times higher. Wow, as a result of these findings here, Dr. John D. Butz, B-U-T-T-S, butts. That's awesome. And chief medical, he's the chief medical examiner, concluded that Reed quote, "died as a result of the complications of arsenic poisoning." Okay. Furthermore, he said, based on analysis of hair samples from the exhumed body of Reed, another doctor, a professor of chemistry, at the University of California, Irvine, and an expert in the field of nuclear chemistry, concluded that the arsenic levels found in Reed's hair correspond to, as they can tell when it happened, a long period of ingestion of arsenic multiple ingestions. He's eaten all ingested a whole bunch of this one over a long period of time. Oh my god. He noted that the arsenic level peaked at 70 parts per million, which is roughly 70 times the normal level. Fuck. That is crazy. This should be, I guess, one part per million. Yeah. Yeah. So, so James Taylor, remember her hymn? Yeah. Old James Taylor, July 6, 1989. He is exhumed. And the autopsy results are died of arsenic poisoning. Motherfucker. Let's see, let's see, go through here. Don't know exactly how much, but that's what it is. He's got a bunch of arsenic in his system here, which is fucking crazy. So, they said the husband, the boyfriend, the father, and I believe the mother, the mother-in-law, 83 year old. All test positive for arsenic. The 83 year old has art, what the fuck could she have done wrong? Mother-in-law, man. You know, told her the seat in the back isn't near punishment enough. No, she is told her nuts. She didn't put the sweet shit on the sweet potatoes or wherever the fuck they eat down there. And that's she lost her mind. Imagine an 83 year old is the target of your eye. Oh, she shouldn't have talked shit about the green bean casserole. I mean, that's what happens. Cross me with one of my appetizers and see what happens. You're going down, grandma. Holy fuck. What the fuck is happening? That is dark. That's, yeah, I would say. James, on Thanksgiving. Shitt is dark, man. That's the most vicious thing I've ever heard in my life. She was doing that while the lions lost. Think about that. Yeah, that's what's going on. She's watching Landry stomp on his hat while she's sprinkling that over some fucking stuffing. What the fuck? This is crazy, right? My God. An 83 year old thought Thanksgiving day is the most horrific thing I've ever heard. She was planning on killing his grandmother on Christmas, but couldn't get around to it. I mean, she's 102. So you never know. That's unbelievable. It's wild. Now lieutenant Steve Lynch, in addition, probably to walking around and knowing people with his guitar comic humor. Yeah. Is that a, that is Steven Lynch? Steven Lynch, yeah. Chief detective of the Burlington Police. Everyone's going to say how much they love him. I get it. Okay. He is very witty. Very witty. That's why he needs musical accompaniment with him. Actually, for, I'll say this for him, for a guitar comic, he's as good as it gets. That is, yeah. Which is a compliment. He's as good as you can do with that. I can't stand if you just have a guitar. I'm like, I don't, I want to hear your thoughts. I'm not clapping along. I don't want to do that. But he's good at what he does in the crowd for it in a song. Oh my goodness. He changed that to the F word. That was clever. But people love him. I get it. That's fine. But I love the Dan band a lot. So yeah. Oh, that's funny. Because that's a whole band love that guy. I love all that. That's a whole band though. They're committing. That's such commitment. This is just one guy a comic who's like, I can get people to clap along. It's easier to follow someone when I have a guitar essentially. Because I'm different. The other reason I love him is because he doesn't have to show us how fucking talented he is. He is married to Kathy Najemi, who's. Yes. So wealthy. He doesn't have to a goddamn thing. But he runs out there showing us. I'm talented too. Motherfucker. I could do something. I love him. So this guy said that he, this is the most talked about criminal case in this town. Since 1939, when another local woman, Helen Holder, was charged with harboring the two killers who had gunned down the police chief during a robbery of a gas station. Sweet Christ. Yeah. Holder was convicted in this courthouse. The same one where blanches are reigned. He said, but nothing in memory has gotten the attention this case has. Not in Burlington. We've checked out the details in 22 deaths. Wow. We'll get to that. He said, you can't just exume bodies for everybody that calls in. Right. Right. Can't just pull everybody out of the grave. I need a court order with a reason for it. She killed an 83 year old on Thanksgiving day. Maybe on that. We don't know. Cold hearted. Cold hearted. So that's, that's those lines, those clearly recognizable lines across the fingernails of Reader, really, what they're white bands across the fingernails. That's a big deal. They said that, and then the official thing that Dr. John Butts here said, he breed died as a result of the complications of arsenic poisoning. Yeah. It is amazing, but your fingernails will tell you. There's ways to tell if you have cancer, by the way, your, by the way, your nails fit together. If you could see, if you could see through it, that you're fine. But if, if it's flat and there's no gap at the, at the cuticle, you're in trouble. Is that real? That's real. Really? That's a real thing. I don't know. I saw it on the, no, that's a minute. Now, you know, I feel like that's one of those of your hands bigger than your face. You have cancer type of things than you have. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's a joke. It's a kid. People go, if your hands bigger than your face, you have cancer, people go like that, and then you smack their hand into their face. You didn't go up in New York. We were mean to each other. Okay. But yeah, that's the thing that, that's a cancer fact that I can see you through. You can see through it. Oh, yeah. We're doing okay. I'm not dead yet, baby. I'm not dead yet. That's a thing though. Is it? Wow. I know. I know. You know, you're someone, like things, things show up in your nails that, that, I mean, you should probably know the things. You, you can't just decipher it. Probably. No, the average person, but they're, I'm sure a nail tech. So real. We should say you should stop going to your doctor and start going to see the Vietnamese ladies down at the nail shop. They'll get ill, tell you what you're fine or not. You'll get manicured. They'll tell you, I'll get a cancer. Yeah. They'll tell you you have cancer and you can go, oh, shit. And they can emotionally tell you have cancer. And then, and they'll just, yeah. That's right. You want a doctor. Yeah. Like doctors. That's, I mean, they'll get the attitude of a doctor of like, well, cancer. There you go. Anything else. So I want a lollipop. So the chemistry professor here, the doctor Vincent Gwynn. He's the guy who analyze reads hair. And apparently it really locks in whatever's in your blood. So a strand of hair is like a timeline. Yeah. It's pretty fucking interesting. And they said that it was a long period of ingestion of arsenic and multiple ingestion. So he can see no arsenic for a couple of weeks here. A bunch of arsenic for a couple of weeks here. You can look at it, which is wild. And he said the hair said again and again and again, arsenic, arsenic, arsenic here. This doctor, Gwynn, by the way, is the same nuclear chemist who did the neutron activation analysis on the bullet fragments from the JFK assassination in the 70s. I think it was for the Warren commission possible. What did he figure out? He measured the bullets, the JFK bullets that came to Winston Salem to measure. Yeah, he measured those. Okay. There you go. I don't know what he found probably nothing because they still have some new trunks. Yeah, these are bullet fragments. Anyway, you know, he's got a fucking hole in his head. And he goes, well, that's my, I'm a chemist. I don't know what to tell. I think he died of gunshots. I thought that's my, I'm looking at these fragments and they don't look good. If they were in my skull, I'd say I was dead probably. If these went through a body. That's my, that's my personal opinion. One of these exhumations is the coworker Joseph Mitchell, the meat cutter there who was 57. His body showed no elevated arsenic. And he died of natural causes. Damn. So he actually did die. It was just right in the cluster of this time. So they had to check on it, basically. Now one little lesson here on how arsenic works because I don't know if everybody really, I don't know a ton about it. So, no, there's a reason they put skull and crossbones on that I can rap poison poison is what I see. I don't put, I'll touch that. That shit. So it's a naturally occurring element here. All right. It's been around. People have used this to murder people for thousands of years. Yeah, I mean, I think it was in. This is Biblical shit. Yeah. Oh, yeah, the Romans, well before shakes the Romans. This is how they would kill each other. I mean, you want to knock off and that. Yeah, you want to knock off your uncle who's the emperor. So you can be the emperor. This is how you do it. Yeah. And arsenic's just in the environment, right. It's in water and stuff like that. It's in naturally occurring substance. Absolutely. They call it inheritance powder, which I think is. That's a they've called it that since like the you know 1200s Some comic and the 1200s put that 1200s put that on like his his stone Instagram page He had heard that it's do a tablet put it up against the wall and he's like, yeah as people went by they were like They just gave thumbs up He picked that up off a bar stool on a stone right inheritance. Yeah Then somebody picked up a stone and started chiseling. He's like, what are you doing? He's like, I want to share this Like, uh, I'll tell you how to share back then. It's very difficult. Yeah, I'm making a greeting card. I'm sharing that's yeah So um, it's a you can it's a powder you can make it into tasteless odorless white powder. You never know. It's there That's what's fucking crazy the most frightening substance on the planet is what it's terrifying Yeah, you can just put it in food and drink and no one will ever fucking know about especially if it's something that tastes Strong you never think of that. Yeah. No, the one way you can do it is one massive single dose You can kill somebody very easy with a big dose But the problem is any doctor who takes one look at the corpse knows exactly what happened That's the issue with that if somebody if a healthy person just eat something then keels over You know secrets out. It's getting investigated. Yeah, but the second way is to low dose poisoning over weeks and months Which makes it look like someone is chronically ill Getting sick and gradually getting sicker and it mimics shitloads of very common things as we saw That's why we keep getting misdiagnosed Yeah Um, so it looks like the flu like a stomach bug nausea vomiting diarrhea weakness Then it starts to attack the nervous system numbness and tingling in the hands and feet doesn't that sound just like the other syndrome Yeah, that's the problem Then it hits the skin rashes swelling eventually you can swell so much the skin can split that's insane That is disgusting holy shit horrible It fucks the kidneys up the marrow in the blood shuts down your systems one at a time Um, and basically in the 60s 70s and 80s If someone wasn't thinking there there's a Probability this person's being poisoned. They're not going to look for that They're just going to take normal medical things gastroenteritis shingles even Heart failure because they thought Dwight had shingles when he first went to the hospital. They thought oh yeah, you have stuff Yeah, if you flew like symptoms from shingles. That's what they thought it was then he got worse It essentially just sits on the side of your house and flips each little breaker. Yep until they're all off living room Yeah, you don't need to in your watch your own and the outlet and the kitchen and see units GF5 units there not gonna need that right breaker. Yeah, that's all it is Wow, and the bands grow across the fingernails and there's also the hair and that's the that's the one that really locks in the toxins here um So yeah, and they said with the hair they don't just say there was our stink They can basically tell you the specific dates when there was arsenic. Yeah, looking it over I mean they can kind of figure it out and get within about a week of when the fuck this happened A hair only grows like like a quarter of an inch a week Yeah, so if you've got two inches of hair you've got so much time. There's so it's a hole with like a stock ticker Yeah, back in the day that coming out of the thing. Oh, it was prior yesterday. I mean it's yeah, well, oh no, I'm losing money um, so Then they had to trace the poison where'd she get this poison the problem is This isn't a controlled substance. This isn't something to sign for you can go into any hardware store and buy poison It's at crogers. It's at crogers. It's everywhere. You can go anywhere you want Now the specific arsenic that they got here that she ended up getting was anti-ant ANTI dash anti-ant killer or in her case kill your aunt people maybe people killer yeah Um, it was manufactured by a company called atla chemical company in McLean'sville, North Carolina little company. They just make poison Who froze uh, now the owner of this company peggy Vaughn said that her company had made anti-ant for over a decade And that arsenic is the main act of ingredient you know poison And that these states exhibit uh later on they showed us is this what you sell and she said that's the same shit That's what I sell looks just like it So and also a croger co-worker named Brenda green remembered blanche recommending anti-ant to a customer as good stuff works Well, it crushes as an ant killer and then Dwight also said her husband Dwight Moore said in the summer of 85 Blanche showed him a bottle of anti-ant and asked him to buy more From bird's food center which he did and gave it to her so he might have bought his own poison by the way That's fucked up. That is she's too fucking lazy to even get her own poison for these people Can you run down the store and get my murder weapon? Wow. Can you imagine me like can you make me that gun there? Thank you. We're then shooting. Yeah, the fucking hey get it yourself next time toss me those 38 rounds. Yeah, Jesus Christ Um, and a former co-worker named Leonard wolf who ran a little convenience store called Ken's quickie mart remembers blanche coming or in and around early around April 89 Which is when they got married and when he got sick in early April 89 right before the wedding right before the poisoning and asked if he had any anti-ant and stock Wow, is that liquid or a powder? Do you know how does it's a powder? Yeah, granules Fucking granules. Yeah, you lay it down. They take it into their nest and die So gross. So after all this they have to sit down and have a little chit chat with Blanche. Yeah We got to have a little talk with all Blanche girl here. So they sit on they sit her down. Yeah, what are you done? And she comes in and like a dress and a blouse and yeah big glasses with the Like my grandma hair. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, almost 60 years old and dresses like she's 76 she Comes in and she sits down. She denies everything. I don't know what you're talking about Yeah, they ask about arsenic and She said they probably took it themselves Everybody know they keep taking it these guys. I'm such a pain in the ass every man I'm with tries to murder himself with arsenic. That's how it works I'll drink and poison yeah, and they were like well, I mean you're let's forget about your alive husband Let's talk about your two dead husbands 15 years apart. They both had the same idea right to just spread you know rather than sweet and low in their coffee They're gonna use fucking arsenic that I that's it in your fucking summertime lemonade. Yeah, that's what's going on here And then they said what about the the hair you knew that they checked hair and you had his haircut Right. We had to use pubes man What the fuck basically you got us digging around in a man's crotch and an old man and an old dying man's crotch Q scumbag So here are some excerpts or from the interrogation, which is great that we have this um, the cops said when he meaning Raymond Reed started getting real sick when he was at the hospital Did you ever did you ever carry him food or anything? Did you take food and she says no, you couldn't carry him in food Which he knows a lie. Um, they said you never carried Raymond no you never carried Raymond no food while he was in the hospital This is a homicide detective She said Yeah, this is a important man in the community. Yeah, you carry you never carried Raymond no food. She said no sir I didn't I don't remember taking anything into his room Okay, which is very specific and it was room sounds yeah, why are you qualifying it with that they said did Raymond ever give you any money Yeah, she said uh, well as a matter of fact yes, he did Raymond did give you money did give me money They said did he give you a large amount of money She said when he was in Colorado He wrote me or called me or something. I can look it up He said he felt so guilty that he was on vacation and I was not so he sent me a check for a thousand dollars In Colorado When he was in Colorado he felt so guilty gave her a check for a thousand dollars They said what was the most he ever was at the most he ever gave you and she said to my knowledge But now Raymond he was always giving me something buying me expensive gifts. It's a real giver This Kruger manager gig is crushing man. Yeah, wow. Oh, you don't you don't Drowsary store managers make a killing apparently so they really do if he's doing great Highest paid person in the store and they move them to other ones based on how well they how well their store I never knew if they made a lot of money or whatever I mean they seem to do okay But I mean he's buying expensive gifts having a wife and her on the side buying her shit That's you know fairly money. That's a early 2000 with six figures. Hmm. They're doing great. That's great then. Yeah I don't know if you had a fair money But I guess you don't know is six figures a fair money. I don't think it is. I think the 80s Yeah, I think back in 86 years of the fair money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if they were making that They're probably making 80 grand a year in the 80s That's a lot of money in the 2000. They've got to be right. Thank guys six figures in the two early 2000s That's yeah, that's a lot of fucking money. It's a lot of money. I mean a lot and when I say six one thirty one forty Yeah, that's a fair money in 2002 for sure. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's if if they split this in half who gives a shit I'm still making seventy right. I can still afford. It's like my math joke. I can get that one bedroom. I can Yeah, I itself. Oh, fuck yeah. Um, so then the cops said well, it's obvious that he must have really loved you Trying beta a little she said Well, I think he did, and another thing that I have to honestly say about this with this thing with Dwight was that he knew, knew that Dwight, he says, "Ramen knew about Dwight." Oh. That's what she says. So she wasn't really having an affair. It's not an affair. It's an open relationship. It's just fine. Yeah. They're just freaky church people. It's all good. They said, "We cannot ignore the fact that you got a husband here with arsenic at him. If Raymond Reed had got it in him, you're the only connection between the two." She said, "What do you mean the only connection when I, I, I went all that span of time and did not see Raymond before he got sick?" And they said, "You know, Blanche, you visiting him in the whole time in the hospital. The whole time he was there." She said, "When Raymond was in the hospital, he had one nurse with him all the time. You went in for five minutes, meaning you don't know what was going on. Ask the nurse basically." So they go, "Tell you what? Turn around." Let's test and see how small these cuffs go with your little bony wrists. You're under arrest. She's arrested charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of James Taylor and Raymond Reed with assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill for the poisoning of Dwight Moore. Okay. Rest of it survived. Yeah. They're going to deal with the rest of it if they have to later. Just, these are the ones they can prove pretty definitively and those are the ones they're going for. And so yeah, she's held in the county jail for 14 months before trial. Just knitting. Making pudding. Dwight Moore said that if he had died, Blanche might have inherited as much as $75,000. But this is the night, he's such a nice man, this guy. He said he didn't believe that was her reason for poisoning him though, was for money. He's like, "Block else?" In his mind, he's like, "Who would do that?" "I'm sure into it for money. She's a cold-hearted bitch." Yeah. She's nasty. Listen to this. He said, "I think her motive was her inability to actually express her dissatisfaction with folks. And it was easier for her to do this than to say no." Very non-confrontational. He's basically saying that's exactly what it is rather than break up with someone who's just easier to kill them, to not have the confrontation. "Would she okay?" No, I don't know. No, he's had a lot of arsenic in poison. This arsenic is fucked his brain up. Yeah. But actually also psychologically, that might be, is it easier to do it? Part of it. Live with it like that? I mean, she had to run away from her dad. So maybe that's her thing. Get away from the person. You can't get away from a person you're married to unless you kill them. You know? He may have to rectify it with those words because otherwise, he laid next to a murderer every goddamn night. Yeah. And for money, too. This makes her like, this is a really generous view of things that she just had to quote an inability to actually express her dissatisfaction with folks. With folks? The most generous thing ever of, she got people to sign over their will shit and then killed them. That seems more to the point. That's what homesy. Yeah. Yeah, this is almost folksy the way it's this way. It's almost a folksy murder. So the dissatisfaction with folks, I mean, how nice does he sound? You could burn his house down and he goes, "Well, I think he's just testing the veracity of a zippo, really. I mean, he wanted to make sure it was a fine piece of equipment he had and it was unoperational." I think he just wanted to see if the two by fours would stand up. You know what? I can understand the curiosity. He's a real kind man. Now, the locals freak out about this shit. Yeah. And it's funny because it's not our normal freak out way. Our normal freak out way is they buy door locks and guns and alarms and, you know, lose their fucking minds and don't want their kids to outside. Ante's not invited to Thanksgiving anymore. Yeah. This is almost like funny because they're like, well, she can't hurt me. She's an old lady in jail, so it's like, yeah, no one's going to break in my house. You had to be married to her. So people are almost like, it's almost like it's like not a joke because they know these poor guys die. It's very serious. Yeah. It's very serious, but it's also like, this fucking nice old lady just killed people. This is nuts. Right? They're almost no gang. That's what's crazy. For nuts, you really didn't get much. So Rick Wolf, a clerk at the convenience store near the church that Moore was a pastor at remembers her coming in a few weeks before her husband's illness. And this is a different clerk, by the way, than the moment they talked to before. He said, quote, she wanted anti-ant. I told her we didn't have any. She said to get some and that it's good stuff. Try it in banana pudding, especially. It's really actually really goes great and potato soup. Yeah. And this guy's even dumber than anybody else. This guy says quite honestly, I doubt that it meant anything. No, it does. That's the. I mean, I know she was looking for the poison that she used to kill a bunch of people with, but I don't think that she was looking for. I think she just really had ants in that visit. You should get it. It's a real fucking worst. It's good stuff. I don't think it meant anything by it. I think she meant it fucking works. But they get it. It kills shit. Whatever you put it on. He's saying quite honestly, I doubt that it meant anything. I like Blanche. But after everything that's come out, it does make you have some questions. Oh. Some questions. Some questions. She killed two husbands and her 20 year affair, and her possibly her mother-in-law, and her father as well. I mean, it does. Every man that's been around her, lived in a house with her as dead or dying of arstic poison. It does lead you to at least two questions. One is how many, and the other is fucking why? Why? Yeah. Two great questions. How stupid am I that didn't put those things together? Is the other thing? How dumb am I? I don't die now. Why don't I think about things better? Another the manager of the Burlington of a Burlington Grill said everybody's talking about it. A lot thinks she did it. A lot thinks somebody tried to frame her. Whoa. Wow. People that know her say she'd never do a thing like that. Even her father, they just can't believe it. Wow. Then the victims' relatives come in, they're a bit disturbed, and they're even more disturbed by the fact that people don't think that she did it, even though it's pretty obvious she did. I mean, I mean, a fucking break here. Curtis Parsons, who is the brother of Mabel Parsons, who died in October of what he thought was lung cancer, that's a lady that Blanche had visited in the hospital a few days before her death and brought her fucking food. He said it was a complete surprise to me when police called me about my sister's death. It's very difficult to go through the death of someone you love and then to have this crop up. Either Blanche Moore was the sweetest woman who ever lived or she's a killer. Or the fucking devil. No in between. There really isn't. She's either there. Yep. He said, and now there's talk of exhuming more bodies. Well, we'd just like to see the whole thing laid to rest. Only way. Thankfully you're not the district attorney, thankfully because we need to see how many people has brought kill. That's what we need to see. I mean, I get that you don't want to pop it up in your sister's dead either way. So fuck it, but I'd want to know if my sister was murdered or died of natural causes for Christ's sake. I mean, hopefully at the end in the interrogation when we have or in court or whatever, when we have definitive evidence to really give her the what for and make sure that she recognizes what she's done. Maybe she'll just be like, all right, here's all of them, but in the event that she fucking doesn't get out to John Deere. Let's go do this. Yeah. Let's break out the fucking the shovels, boys. So she's in jail awaiting trial and a letter arrives to police. Oh. It is a letter signed by a man named Garvin Thomas, who was a local man. He was the guy who exists in it. And this is the member of the person said, maybe someone she said she's trying someone was framing her. Yeah. Well, in it, Garvin Thomas confesses to murdering Raymond Reed and to attempt to attempting to murder Dwight Moore. He said that he did it because why Jimmy? I'm in love with her. I'm in love with Blanche. Oh boy. I couldn't help myself. Yeah. You're seeing it to her psyche now, even deeper, right? Yeah. So that's who it is. So police go and find Garvin Thomas, who's a real man who exists. And then they also get handwriting people and the handwriting and said here that it's not Garvin Thomas's handwriting. As a matter of fact, sure looks a lot like Blanche's as with the experts. Why wouldn't she do that? She wrote her own confession letter saying that someone's in love with her, because then it makes her look innocent and sexy at the same time. It's everything an narcissist needs. And he used a real man, a real person to through him under the bus. It's crazy. So yeah, he turns up and the defense would love to him to be a real guy that really did this. But the problem is he actually has gone to see her. That's the issue. There's testimony from a jailer. Marilyn Hinsha that a man carrying a teddy bear and signing in as Garvin Thomas had tried to visit Blanche and jail, saying he'd done so much wrong in his life and hurt so many people that he wanted to start writing his wrongs. That's what this person said. Now, we don't know if this actually was Garvin Thomas though, given somebody acting like him. So the defense person here, the defense attorney said, they said that, oh, I'm sorry, the person, yeah, okay, said that when, when she, her boss heard about the teddy bear visitor, they arranged a meeting with Garvin Thomas at which he had reportedly said he knew he was going to die and he knew Blanche hadn't done the thing she was accused of and that he'd hurt her, her, her and her family and he was sorry. So that's a defense, that's what the defense said, the lawyer said and by the time trial comes up, of course, he's dying in debt. Anyway, that's the thing was there a guilt rack secret admirer, you know, trying to write his wrongs, carry in fucking teddy bears or what? The prosecution says she wrote the letter herself. That's what happened. We're not, you know, get the fuck out of here. But her even her own defense expert said that he saw signs that there was disguising in the writing, but wouldn't swear that Garvin Thomas wrote it. So even her expert says, I don't think it's Blanche, but I can't say it's him. Okay. So that's not great for her. The problem is too, when they're really looking into her, there's the obvious people to dig up and look at. But then there's a list of about 22 dediquantances connected to Blanche over the years and they get court orders to pull medical records on all of them, a huge list, 22 that's a lot of people in your circle. Wow, yeah, that's a shitload, so they were looking into that. Now, one of the things she's known as the black widow killer, and we've, you know, encountered a few of these in time and just to give you a kind of an overview of how common it is or uncommon or whatever here, basically, these are, unless you only do it once, these are serial murders is what these are. And basically serial killing is, that's a male thing. It's a, it's a dude thing for the most part. It's basically about seven to one male to Jesus serial killers. Yeah. That's heavy. Yeah. Women kill people who are close to them. They don't kill random people. They just don't, they don't get satisfaction out of that. Yeah. It's not the husband, whatever. Yeah. They kill people they're close to. So, and also men are, they'll stalk and do all this shit and women don't do that. Most of the time, sexual element. That's so gross. But even if it's not a sexual element to attack them, this is giving them some kind of sexual sense. The sexual element involved in this and it'll, he might come in his pants killing. Exactly. Like BTK. Yeah. So, yeah, women though they kill people, they're no, they know and for hundreds of years, poison has been their main murder weapon because a lot of times you're dealing with someone who's physically stronger than them, bigger than them, things like that. And they're trusted to make meals also, so that's what you end up with and doesn't require a struggle. It doesn't do anything. So the black widow one is a woman who systematically murders partners and spouses and family members over a long period, usually for profit, insurance, estates and poison is a big way they do that. And they say that's the opposite of men too. Men don't do this when they're 20, 25, 27, they do it later whereas by the time they start with that, men are kind of burned out on serial killing. It's rare for serial killers to be killing people into their fifties. That's rare. Rex Huriman was a fucking different and he's huge so he can dominate anybody. Exactly. And he's a giant guy. As you age, you get more docile because they tend to burn out on it. Yeah. Yeah. They might go out once in a while, but also as they age, they have more responsibilities. They're more tired. They work the fucking work all day. Yeah. I don't think I've been struggling with my fucking arthritis. The carpal tunnel. Yeah. That's not good. Sorry. My strangling thumbs all fucked up. I can't get it. You're going to survive. I'm sorry. Shit. I'm sorry. This is going to go on for a while. I can't get a good grip. Let me tell you this literally hurts me more than I really does. It really, really does. So yeah. That's how it works. But pre trial opinions here. This is Lloyd Taylor. This is James Taylor's son brother, brother, a fucking victim's brother said, quote, everything points one way, but I just don't know. That's how much she comes across as meek church lady. Yeah. Nice little church lady. All the evidence is there and he says, I still just don't. I can't see it out of her. And that's why a lot of them get away with it for so long. That's right. That's right. He says, she was one of the most congenial persons you've ever seen, always smiling. The only thing I can say, I hope she gets justice, whatever that is. I don't, I don't know if she did it. Oh boy. Now the sister said it seems kind of odd. All the rest of us live to be a ripe old age. James was very young. We had a premonition. Something wasn't ripe, but we couldn't put our fingers on it. It's just really tore me up wondering why we bury them one time. They dig them up and then we bury them again. It's horrible. I just don't understand. That's awful. And they said the motive seems to be the part that people kind of get fucked up on because Blanche's defenders like even some of these people's relatives say there's no motive. She's just what she appears to be. Her brother Sam here said, he believed, he said, as God is my witness, I do not see a dark side to my sister, nor have I seen a dark side. And he said she believed that the, the guy who she said wrote the letters, he's the actual killer. That's what he believes. It's unbelievable. It's absolutely unbelievable. He went on to say she was more willing to give people, give to people than to receive from people. She didn't give arsenic. Yeah, it's a problem. She didn't believe in making her good deeds known. She was just a caring person. Wow. Okay. Now, her sister said one thing is certain behind the headlines is a person who is not capable of doing this and he was a co-worker. Here's a coworker. This is what I love at work, somebody hates you, guaranteed, especially if you're head anything, somebody hates your ass, no matter where you're at, unless you are, and even then people hate you. No matter where you're at, somebody despises you. They will at least talk some shit if you're going. The, now Kroger had given her top ratings at her job and called her a good leader in, in reports, and used her to train cashiers, but one of her co-workers said, if you got on her bad side, she could be vindictive. Everyone thought she was too faced. She could be very underhanded. That's what a murderer is. That's the real deal right there. That's the person that saw it. Ask the broad work in the checkout and counter next to her if she's cool or not. You'll find out fast. That's it. Now, the Reverend Moore, wow, he said that, quote, she seemed to be a Christian woman that would make a good mate for a minister. That's why I married her. Like a nice Christian woman, he says that, you know, he says he still feels numb. He says he knows she gave it to him because she had to have. There's no one else that could have done it. He says, quote, I'm not harboring any betterness. He's the nicest man who's ever lived. He's just a nice, did he recover fully? I can't be, something's got to be in his brain. This is horrible. I mean, the poor guy, but I think he's just a nice guy. I think he's like, he like read the Jesus stuff and went, oh, yeah, do the stuff that Jesus said to do. Yeah, that's a nice thing. I think you read that part. I'm a wife. So, yeah, wild. He said, I don't have any need for vengeance. I'm trying to concentrate my energies on recovering, not being consumed by hate. Well, you almost didn't. Wow. You almost didn't. Now, her attorney says, quote, she's been anxious about all the negative little things that have come out in the whole 14 and a half months. She's had a desire to respond and has had no forum. Thank fuck. Because otherwise, she's going to end up like Corey Richards having all of her fucking texts going, these, they're going to pay for what they did to me that judge and how dare he. And make it worse for herself. This isn't better. Speaking in carny. Speaking. Yeah, like Mackenzie there. So the lawyer also said the defense will show that she was a kindly woman who loved the men in her life and suggested the victims ingested arsenic in other ways. Just happened to keep ingesting it. He said, we'll be suggesting possible alternatives. There's so much to be said and I want to get on saying it. Well, that's the thing about our system is that you may want a forum, but that's maybe the worst thing for you. You wait until your day in court. That's it. It's all you can do. Get in the fucking news and chirp. Never going to look good. Ask Chris Watts how that worked out. Real well. Ask you and don't write a book about it either. Yeah. The other thing. So this case is bringing up a lot of comparisons to a 1984 case where a woman named Velma Barfield was executed after killing four people with rat poison. She's executed. She was known as death row granny. Jesus. Okay. That's so fucking dark. It's fucking dark right? Oh my god. It sounds like a woman who comes into death row with cookies and doilies every couple days to keep their spirits up. Yeah. Hello boys. Oh. Draws another notch. I don't care what they did. They're nice boys to me now. That's all I care about. Um Lord October 1990 Raymond Reed murder trial. Okay. Now the thing is Blanche lived in Alamance County. Reed was poisoned in Alamance County. Uh, but there was other shit he technically died at the North Carolina Baptist hospital, which is in force of county. So there's a venue struggle here. Uh, there, um, and it was poisoned at the force of one, right? In that hospital at the end there. That's where he died. So that's where she's going to have to stand trial here. Um, so they, they take everybody from there, the judge and everything else and bring them over to that, um, to that county. And they said there was suffocating publicity back there. But of course there was. There's, it's everywhere. Um, they tried to get it changed. The defense tried to get it changed, not to force it, but to somewhere far away where her name was it known as the poisoning granny. This is shocking that she's going to try to fight this shocking. Well, they did a study. The investigator survey found that 49 per out of 50 people pulled had followed her case. And that one guy, 36 had formed an opinion and 31 of those opinions where she's guilty. So that's off one for a jury there. 62% think you're a fucking asshole. I think you're a dick. Um, two of them said that she was guilty and that they should quote, fry the woman. That was another thing. And there was an even a radio station in Ashboro W K R R FM that kept playing a song, calling Blanche a black widow spider. Wow. So, um, of the 33 news articles, the defense submitted as proof of prejudice, the court noted at least three contained exculpatory material as far as possible other people. And only one was truly inflammatory. And that was a piece in a magazine called True Police Cases, which that's going to be bullshit. And the headline was quote, the men in her life keep dropping like flies. He said the rest were just factual accounts. So they said that's all the same shit the jurors are going to hear. And every one of the 12 jurors seated swore they had formed no opinion and could decide on evidence alone. Um, out of 110 perspective jurors screened 46 were dismissed for already deciding she was guilty. Not good. If all came to the interviews with the poor, uh, I'm torched in a pitch for her. Yeah, they just showed her. Well, we're here. Go on, let her out in the street. Well, we'll take care of it. That's shall I like this now? Should I wait till we find her guilty or what? So there is a also a disadvantage to her here in this county as well. When the case was in Alamance County, the DA had agreed to an open file policy, which is if the defense gets to see everything, not just the things they have to see legally for discovery, then the case moved to force it. And that guy said, well, I'm not doing that. That's what that guy told you. I mean, what I'm doing. I'll give you what I have to give you legally and not a shred fucking more. You can beat shit. Uh, so the defense said what the fuck and they tried to go to a separate hearing for that. And the court said, no, no, what you want to do here. Um, that's it. Um, so this is another thing. Now, during all of this, while she was in jail, Reed Raymond reads ex-wife and two sons sued North Carolina Baptist hospital for malpractice over the lost 86 arsenic test. Because if they had given that to the doctor, they would have known he was being poisoned and she would have been a suspect than what had stopped and he would have lived. Right. Essentially. So it's like Dexter over here, like the number of Dexter with the father, they said normally a wrongful death claim would be time barred, but the family got the statute of limitations thrown out by proving that Blanche, who was an executor of Reed's estate, was the person legally entitled to learn about the toxicology screen and that she fraudulently concealed it because they didn't know it got lost. So they thought they must have given it to her and she threw it out, but then it comes out through everything in the discovery that got lost at the hospital, which was even fucking worse. Um, there's a long-standing rule in American courts that basically while the defendant is hiding the wrongdoing, you can't, that the statute of limitations can't run out. It restarts again if they're doing that. That's how we keep it going. Because otherwise, they could just hide everything until the statute ran out and then they were fine. Yeah. Right. So, um, now in the civil case, the Fifth Amendment protections that shield a criminal defendant aren't there anymore. It's not the same as civil case. You don't have rights, you don't have constitutional rights in a civil case. Okay. That's why OJ had to do those depositions and testify in all that shit in the civil case because we had no choice. So, um, under a deal between the force of DA and the Reed family's lawyers, much of the evidence against Blanche was gathered by the family's civil attorneys based on this lawsuit. So they had all that shit, all the, all sorts of stuff. The defense said, okay, um, basically, they said, we want a bill of particulars. Basically, they said, you say she poisoned him, then tell us exactly when she poisoned him. Give us exact times and dates and locations of where the boys and women went into the body. Do that. The prosecution said numerous and for months. We don't have to give you exact fucking time and date from her in him over this long. Okay. So, I mean, so there we're going to try and prove she was elsewhere. So she couldn't have done it. But how many times it is within a strand of hair, we can't. Yeah. Exactly. We just know that he's poisoned and she's the only one close to him. That's exactly right. But she's wanting, she thinks that would be reasonable doubt if we they don't know exactly when and maybe she wasn't there. Okay. But there's no moment to pinpoint. It's the whole goddamn. Yeah. Almost a year that went on here. So the basically prosecution's case is Blanche Fed read in the hospital every time she fed him, he kept getting worse. And she's denying that she even brought him food at all despite every witness in the hospital saying all he ate was her food. Yeah. There's also rule 404 B thing here, which is the judge let the state tell the jury about the other poisonings. It's prior bad acts. That's normally that's the 404 B deal. Under North Carolina's rule 404 B, you generally can't drag in someone's prior bad acts to argue that they're a bad person, so they must have done this. But if those acts show motive opportunity intent plan knowledge or identify a signature. Okay. Then you can do that. So the court found Blanche's pattern was a signature, therefore it's allowed in. Okay. So now they can talk about the others. They can bring Dwight on the stand saying she was poisoning me while I was alive. When it's an MO. When it's an MO exactly. And in each case financial motive and all of that. And also they set knowledge and access to anti-ant, arsenic delivered in multiple multiple doses over a long stretch. Not one big hit. She did it the same every time also shows her patterns. That's it. In each case she was said to have heard someone heard her say she hated the victim or that the victim was evil or cruel. And in both cases she already had another guy lined up. So now the judge said he kept out the specific arsenic levels found in James Taylor's or found in in Moore's body with the death of James Taylor and that was in her own father. I'm sorry. They left out PD Kaiser's arsenic levels. Oh. But James Taylor and Dwight more all of that comes in. Sure. Okay. Prosecution opening here. He said, I know she looks nice and she looks like everybody's grandmother. But I accept that that's the challenge of the prosecution to overcome that. He said, this isn't ordinary. This is extraordinary. The mathematics of it are powerful. And I believe in them. In other words, you got to believe the science here. And he also quoted the song secret agent man by saying a pretty face can hide an evil mind. Secret agent man. What is that? What's the song's ruined now Jones or something? Yeah, it was in a comedy that way. Oh, it was in a million comedies. Austin Powers. It was all over that. Yeah. And I was a kid. I always thought it was Asian. A super Asian man. I didn't know why I was like, why is he hiding that he's Asian? It was so I didn't know what it meant. So I was just like, whatever. I don't know. Some guy doesn't want everybody to know he's Asian or something. That's I thought the song meant I had no fucking. Pretty obvious guys. Why is everybody? Yeah. What are we getting me here? Was it a snow around here? How is this a secret? I don't get it. It's a bad secret. Yeah. So there's nurse Wanda Moss. She's a very damaging witness here. She described Reed being fed through a narrow dob-hoff tube that clogged easily and how the nurse is cleared it by syringing Coca-Cola through it. Oh, she's like a truck engine to get the shit off. The Coke sat unattended in the room and the syringes were in an unlock closet right next to the Coke. She may have done it with that kind of that's going to put it right in this feeding tube. Good Lord. Blanche was frequently present for all of it. Also, the they said that they said what did she what what did you see or bring from home peanut butter milkshakes banana. Manopudding, tomato pudding, tomato pudding. The fuck is that? - I don't even know how you do that. - That sounds, that sounds like ketchup. - Yeah, that's tomato pudding. - That goes on hot dogs. - That is okay. Wow, cornbread, milk, and also notes showed that he was repeatedly complaining of nausea in the day after he was fed by blanch. - A bunch of soft shit that dissolves powder very easily. That's what he had. - Yep, and could be putting a tube. - Yeah. - Also, this nurse said she never saw anyone but blanch bring him food or feed him, as well. Nileesa Hutchins, the lead ICU nurse said that on October 1st, when he was feeling good, she saw blanch feeding him banana pudding and that two days later, he was begging her to not let him die. - Oh my God. - Stephen Reed, the son, talked about my father's skin splitting in 24 hours after eating a breakfast at blanch prepared for him. - That's crazy. - The treating physicians walk the jury through months of multiple system failures and misdiagnosis and everything else. Each one of them in hindsight saying, now it's obvious, it's arsenic. That's what's doing this. - It's being poised. - Yeah, John Butts is in there. Dr. Butts, and they bring it in. They talk about the 30 to 67 times the normal tissue levels and all that kind of shit. The anti-ant lady testifies saying, and other people testify saying they heard her recommend it to people at various times. And the storekeeper who asked for it, the week that he was killed. There's a handwriting expert who told the jury that Garvin Thomas' confession was written by blanch. Then they bring up the old good reverend light more up on the stand and sit him down. And the lead prosecutor, Janet Branch, she'll be Janet Downing later. Keep him, remember that, 'cause I got a crazy story about her when this is done. She's doing the questioning. A few questions in. For some reason, Janet Branch became overwhelmed and burst into tears. - Oh. - And then after about 30 seconds, she just stood up and fled the courtroom. She couldn't continue. The prosecutor. - She just started crying, I don't know where? - I don't know where. While questioning her own witness. And the defense moved for a mistrial, saying this display of emotion tainted the jury. And the judge just took a recess and pulled the jurors on whether the prosecutor's exit would affect their impartiality. And they said, no, we don't know what she's got going on. - I don't know what the fuck that is. - Because she broke up with a boyfriend yesterday. Oh, fuck it now. Yeah, we don't know what's going on. And they went, all right, case continues. So her defense led by attorneys here had, it's tough. They get a handwriting expert who kind of muddies the waters, but even he wouldn't say it was definitely Garvin Thomas that wrote the letter. The teddy bear visitor testimony they put on. They put on the will attorney who described Blanche basically steering the will toward herself, which turned out to be not a great witness for them. Then Blanche testifies. - Hell yeah. - Her best course of action is, look at me and listen to me talk. I couldn't do this. Even these victims' families believe it some of them. So, why not? So she dressed up and I mean, she is in a blue suit with a white blouse, pearls, the big glasses, holding a tissue, acting much older than she is. And she denied everything, did all the physical stuff. She said that while Reed was in the ICU, she only recalled him being fed by a tube. She denied ever seeing him have any food at all in that period. She denied bringing him banana pudding or peanut butter milkshakes, even though they had a shitload of people saying the opposite. - That's a fun. - People said swore that they watched her spoon feed him, not just giving him, I'm sure. - And she says no. - Yep, she denied having anything to do with Reed's will, even while admitting that he had given her power of attorney. And even though the goddamn lawyers who did the whole thing testified and sort of the nurses, it's crazy. She admitted she'd heard of anti-ant, but never bought it, never tried to buy it and never recommended it to anyone, even though several people said the opposite. - Never said good stuff, Maynard. - Never, never, you know. And then she flatly denied poisoning everybody. So she just went against all the evidence and said no. - Nah, nah, in closing, the prosecutor said that he only needs to prove a reasonable explanation for a man dying of repeated arsenic, though, so it's fed by a hand in the hospital by one specific person. People keep dying in the same way around this lady. It's pretty clear. Now the defense said, come on, I mean, yeah, look at her. She's an all lady and stuff. - Nah, nah, nah, I said this is all circumstantial. There's Garvin Thomas, there could be another secret admirer out there and you know, she's a lovely 60 year old church lady and you know, she provides for her kids and she brought kindness to the community. What are we talking about here? - Maybe there's a rogue nurse in these hospitals. You've heard of that a million times. - It's been both the hospitals, so maybe it is. And then what about James Taylor and his mom, though, and her dad and that's the other problem. - Rogue nurse. - Rogue nurse came, broke in the house on Thanksgiving, poison the whole, (laughs) her dad, she and her dad molested her too. Rogue nurse. - Rogue nurse, man. - Rogue nurse, now the verdict comes in here. Now the jury does not have the option of a lesser charge. - It's only murder. - First degree murder. 'Cause second degree murder, you can't accidentally administer arsenic for a year over to somebody. There's no, it's either premeditated and cold blooded or not at all. - Oh, boy. - So there's a lot. She has found guilty of first degree murder. - Uh huh. - Okay, now during sentencing, by the way, death penalty on the table. - They're gonna roast, Graham. That's a tough one for a little old lady sitting there, and she's, you know, to point her and go, we're gonna kill fucking. - Nice approach, bitch. - We're gonna kill Aunt Graham over here. 'Cause I don't know which one she has. - I think so. - So the jury found two aggravating circumstances. The murder was committed for monetary gain, the insurance, the estate, and basically, and she steered her husband, boyfriend, and signing a will with a nod. And two, the murders were especially a heinous, atrocious, or cruel, which I couldn't agree more. Those are brutal. - So fucked up. - Now, mitigating circumstances are that she provided well for her children growing up, that when she learned of the arrest warrant, she surrendered peacefully. She didn't go down in a fire fight the way to, hold on, let me get these big church glasses off. I'm gonna start fucking shots at the cops. And that she'd shown concern and kindness for others in her community. - Okay, so the mitigating, look, I thought I could get away with it. That's what they just said. - That's it. Mitigating circumstances is, come on. She's a nice lady. - Not me, they're not gonna believe it. That's what I'm looking at. - Yep. The, in the prosecution and closing, said that, "Reads murder," quote, "set a new standard for cruelty in the history of this country, and that blanche deserves the ultimate penalty." See, this is a 10 months of torture. This is, find me another murder case where someone tortures someone for 10 months. - Right. - Good luck, it's hard. Keeping them on the edge of death and back and forth, this is fucking crazy. This is like a saw moving thing. - She thought she gave them enough, and then they made it out, and she thought she gave them enough. Every time, she didn't think that she was just, so I think she thought she was giving them enough every time. - I think she wanted it to mimic. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? - I think. - I think. - I think. - Sixty-seven times the lethal dose, James. - That's a lot. - She thought she gave them enough. - But that's what built up, too. That builds up in there. So that's, I think. So that's a thing. But maybe that's what it is. Maybe she kept going down. - Well, you keep trying. - You get it, and you cycle it out of your body because it's a naturally occurring thing. It's gotta be able to be processed, and then if you beat it, you gotta be dosed again. - I only say I think she knew what she was doing this way 'cause she did it twice this way. - Yeah. - I think she stopped the first one to kill them. - She was still doing it the same way to the more guy while he was in the hospital. She likes to drag it on over months 'cause it worked the first time. But I don't know, he could be right. I'm not sure. Either way, you man. - Yes. - I guess the gavel for you. - You man may fuck off death by lethal injection. (laughing) Come on, everybody. Let's kill grandma. Can't they just. - I'm surprised that death by any aunt. - Death by running over by a reindeer. What are we talking about? This is wild. (laughing) - So they state drops the remaining charges. James Haller's murder, Dwight Moore's assault because let's face it. - Get a die. - She's fucked. So what happens now? Movie time. They're making a movie right away about this. Oh yeah. An assistant producer, Daniel Ensign saw a short wire story in the Los Angeles Times and said, fuck yes. - Fuckin' yeah. - He said, bodies loaded with arsenic were being exhumed in a small southern town. The suspects, a former head checker at a supermarket, pillar of the church and a doding grandmother. - I smell an Oscar. (laughing) - And the suspect who survived is an ordained minister. This is fucking, this is some TV shit right here. - Yeah. - Yeah, so he said, then we called for the stories, the North Carolina newspapers had written about the case and that's when we realized there was something very interesting and complex going on. This was the last person in the world you would expect to be accused of being a murder. I would say, 1993, the journalist Jim Schatz published a book on the case called Preacher's Girl. And before the trial is even over, they buy the film rights from this girl. Holy shit. So January 1993, the book goes on sale right away, they get the film rights. Yeah. So the book here, they call it a fascinating, it's a fascinating book nonetheless for those of us intrigued by what makes murderers tick, especially grandmotherly born again Christian murderers. I don't know if she's born again. She's always a Christian. But I mean, she's in the evangelical thing. I don't think she's ever been a Christian. That's what I mean. She's been pretending to be a Christian for a long time now. February 16, 1993, the new North Carolina, almost called it New Carolina, the North Carolina Supreme Court. Here's the appeal for her murder conviction. And then they're going to have a decision for that in early '94. TV movie comes out, Black Widow murderers, the Blanche Taylor story. Remember when the TV movies all had a colon and then like the So-and-So story? Blanche was played by, who do you think's going to play Blanche? The lady from the murder she wrote. No, no. Angela Lansfair. Elizabeth Montgomery. Who the fuck is that? Samantha from Bewitched. Are you kidding me? Samantha with her wiggly nose. She's going to fucking do it. Wiggle nose is a murderous. She's a murderous. By the way, the production used Wake Forest University as a backdrop. But the only condition was that on Blanche's costume, there's no Wake Forest logos. Don't you dare. We do not want to be involved in this. So the script is written and called a piece of fiction loosely based on actual events, which is what these TV movies all are. They're all that. So Elizabeth Montgomery, though, she's cast and also David Clinton, who was on 30-something, that's a boring ash out, 30-something in the 80s. There you get cast as Dwight and Blanche. Montgomery says, quote, "Blanche has this vulnerability that made people forget what she has done." Okay. Also, her sense of herself helped me a lot. She was this nurturing, caring, clever, amusing, sexy person. All of that was true, except again, it was all just the flip side of wonderful. Then she said, "She's an incredible woman, which drives me nuts about things like this, though, is if all that energy and cleverness and wit and manipulative ability had been turned around, the woman could have been anything she wanted to be." Yeah. Samantha said that. Samantha said that. And she said, "All this stuff could have been in the plus column instead of the blackest column there is. And Reverend Moore must have had the constitution of an ox to survive as he did." No shit. The other actor, the guy who plays Dwight, said, "I think the fictional Dwight appeared to me to be a man of goodwill and intelligence and good intentions who has led around by his libido. Run around by his dick. Every guy has one. That's what we're doing." He said, "That's what nearly killed him. He was blinded by lust and a kind of romantic haze. To some extent, I admire his loyalty to Blanche in the face of so much evidence that she was trying to kill him. You can call it one thing or you can call it another." I guess he was sort of a likable sap. Jesus. Wow. They said, "Although the movie deals with serious themes such as a child abuse and murder, Montgomery and Clinton also believe it has a sense of humor." Okay. Clinton's it's hilarious. Clinton says, "If this movie has any merit beyond the run of the mill, fact-based murder stories, it's that it presents the story in kind of a tragic comedy." I don't know if the comedy part is going to work, but there's potential for a great deal of laughter at the absurdity of behavior of Blanche more. Yeah, we know. We just did it. It works great. Seven episodes. It's perfect. The behavior of the Blanche more character and the responses of people around her. How did she get away with this for so long? Then he said, "I think another thing that I hope people will find amusing is the mixture of religious piety and rascality in most of these characters." The hypocrites. Yeah. They're talking about Jesus and the interpretations of the Bible. Meanwhile, their heads are filled with lustful notions. That's that works. Stirring up drinks and blowing everybody. Blowing everybody. Elizabeth Montgomery said, "I think there should be a life sentence without parole. I think life sentence, a life in prison, is far worse than the death penalty." Both actors say they're opposed to the death penalty. Clemen says, "I feel deeply the death penalty is wrong and that it degrades society to the level of the murder. It troubles me to think that this entertainment could tip the scales one way or another in terms of public opinion against Blanche more. This is coming out whilst it's still going on." Yeah. He then says, "What worries me is that people might see the show and state that go ahead and kill her. As guilty as she may be, I don't think it solves anything by doing to her what she's done to others." So May 3rd, 1993, NBC airs Black Widow murders, the Blanche Taylor story, during sweeps month. Dang, they're trying to get it. This is for most. This is for rating. Yeah. And in one of the reviews for it at the time, someone says in the paper, "In ground for TV form, the media NC arsenic tale is one more sweeps week turkey." In other words, they just slapped together a pile of shit and put it out. 19 trying to get a daytime Emmy. So you're trying to get something, trying to get back in anyone acting career. By the way, she died only a couple of years later. Elizabeth. She died 95. Yeah. 95. So basically by the appeals, they're not even trying to say she's innocent. They're just going for procedural errors, including the 404B ruling that they let in the other shit. The defense argued that the states never directly linked Blanche to the other crime. So why should a jury? Trying her for read here about them. And the Supreme Court of the State said that it's a rule of inclusion. Other crimes come in unless their only value is to paint the defendant as a bad person. Here, the other Poisonings prove plan mode of opportunity and identity. So keep on keeping on grandma. Now years later, the Reverend Dwight Moore told a TV station. He had no objection to her if she got her death sentence overturned. He's fine with that. Okay. He said, make of it what you will. Basically, you know, that's what it is. He said the Blanche history. That's what I'm saying. He said Blanche's daughter Cindy had spoken publicly over the years about this, you know, thing. And he, you know, he felt bad about it. So in prison, Blanche has written poetry and music. She survived cancer. They think, by the way, her cancer and her other shit was fake back in the day. Yeah. But this is real. Because now she's in her 70s too. So she survived chemotherapy and radiation in prison in prison. That's not even good. Yeah. In 2009, North Carolina passed the Racial Justice Act, which let death row inmates challenge her sentences using statistical evidence of racial bias and jury selection, because they found out that's a huge deal if you look into it. It's just not politically. And in terms of math, it's just a big deal. In 2010, Blanche, along with 11 other death row inmates, filed to convert their sentence to life under that law, arguing the racial composition of the juries were tainted. Okay. Okay. You are the least tainted person that existed on that time because you're white. And it's not because you're a grandma or anything there. Of course, the governor in 2013 repealed the Racial Justice Act because, you know, really? Yeah. Yeah. That was, I don't know, I'm not going to get into it. Yeah. Think about that time period and what came from it. Think about what came from that 2013 to 2000. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So there was stuff going on there. Lawyer here, one of Blanche's own attorneys who argued her appeal was later convicted of embezzlement for misappropriating client funds, including hers. The lady that was crying? No, no, no, no, her attorney. The prosecutor was the lady who was crying. Okay. All right. Her attorney. He reportedly also had a history of psychological problems. Let's stole her money. Then member Janet Branch Downing, the crying prosecutor. Yeah. Wow. Okay. She remarried. And that's why she's Janet Downing left the DA's office in 91. Her only child, a daughter was born with ret syndrome, RETT, which is a horrible neurological disorder that is wreaks havoc. Over the following years, people said she became a troubled soul. She had a breakdown, mentally and emotionally and just lost it basically. She lost guardianship of her daughter after an emotional breakdown on the morning of October 10th, 2015 on interstate 485 in Charlotte. She parked her car on the median and just walked into the fucking road and got hit by a fucking car and killed on purpose. She got out and just wandered into the center lane of the interstate and stood there and got hit by a car. I mean in hindsight, I feel like there was a big red flag being wiped. You want to talk about that? about a big red flag the night before a neighbor said she came to his door asking for quote a gun or razor blades. One or the other, do you happen to have any anything made of metal? I could kill myself with. Please say, she told him she'd hit rock bottom and she was done. Do you have a gunner or some blades I could use? And he was like, no, I don't have, I don't have those either. Well, then I 75 that what that's it. So the medical examiner ruled it a suicide. She's 62 years old. It's fucking horrible. How old? She was 62 when that happened. Jesus. So North Carolina hasn't executed anybody since 2006. There's lethal injection protocols, the fighting over the racial justice act, the role of physicians who say that they, you know, we shouldn't be doing this. You know, do no harm. Killing a guy can't do that. So North Carolina in 2025, though, past, uh, ear arenas law, I R Y and A arenas law, named after a young woman murdered in another high profile case and signed it in will affect the law or authorizes alternative execution methods, including firing squad and the electric chair, most relevant to, so we're just going backwards in time. What are we just, that's barbaric. Why don't we inject them? It's a lot more and then we go, we can't get the drugs. We'll fuck it. Run them over with a truck then. Yeah, we're doing stream across the median of the free life. Fuck, man. So it pushes them to compress capital appeals into a roughly two year window to clear the path to get to execute everyone on death row. It's political shit trying to say, I'm the toughest, no, I'm the toughest. That's all is. So Blanche right now is 93 years old and on fucking death row. And if it's up to them, I want to get all this through so they can execute her when she's like 96. Can you a little shaky woman to come on grandma? Let's get up here. They're going to have to help her into the fucking chair. We're in Velcro shoes and shit. Are you kidding me? I don't know for a walker with tennis balls on it. Coming up in the fucking death row. I don't know if her heart could stand being tied down to what the fuck are we? What are we doing? Yeah, she's already never mind. She's gone. Let's just make a rule. If you hit 90, we take you off death row. We're not going to murder a 93 year old person. That's insane. I don't care what they did for 20, 30 years. Yeah. If Ted Bundy was 93, we wouldn't take his rickety ass and sit him in a chair. We just tag out. I think rip and days are done every college girl in the country could take him. Now that's what I mean. I think we're all safe. So he might, he might have a coronary just seeing a pair of tips. Yeah, you can kill him with that. Just put him in the chair. And then on the viewing windows have a chick flash and have the trot pies pull him all out. That's it. His float is fucking art. He comes in his pants and dies right then. We're going to kill grandma. Everybody come on. That's crazy. Wow. So in the media here in 1993, that author wrote a book. The author found evidence that seemed to indicate that more set up, Hutton in the sexual harassment suit and may have intentionally set the two fires. That's the other thing, too. They think she set the two fires lied about the sexual harassment suit, lied about having cancer, lied about having surgeries bad. Okay, 1999, the Discovery Channel's the new detective season four episode six women who kill. Oh, yeah, featured her in her crimes. They were also portrayed on evil lives here and snapped, of course, because a woman killed somebody. So it's got to be honest. She's a gal. Yep, also deadly women as well. So there you go, current blanche. She is incarcerated North Carolina correctional institution for women in Raleigh. And she is registered prisoner number zero to eight eight zero eight eight. And they are sharpening all kinds of people to stab her with. I will tell you what. That is Burlington, North Carolina and quite a fuck. I know we had a poisoning like a month and a half ago, two months ago. But that was a totally different thing. Like this is a, this is a serial killer. So she got next to nothing in benefit of this. Oh, yeah, really not a lot. Jesus. Not too much. It's crazy. So if you enjoyed the story or just like the way we do our thing here, please get on whatever app you're on. Give us five stars. Netflix give a thumbs up. It helps tremendously. Thank you for doing that. Cause this takes a lot of work and that really doesn't. So please do that. It makes it easier. Shut up and give me murder dot com is where you go for everything. Small time murder crime and sports and your stupid opinions related. By the way, everybody crime and sports. We are doing a long series on a football player who's a murderer in the Yahweh, Ben Yahweh called the sports was over in about five minutes. And we're just talking about cults and murder for a long time. So it's a good way to get yourself into crime and sports as well. So do that. Hang out with us. Get your merchandise. Get your tickets to live shows September 18th. The show start back up again. We take the summer off. September 18th back at the Papps in Milwaukee, which is one of our favorite places to do the Papps. We love it. Love that whole place. Love the, even the green room is great. Place is great. The staff is great and Robbins the best. And that is almost gone. Those tickets. So if you want to go to that, get those now. Mill or miniapolis. The next night September 19th state theater. You guys need to catch up to Milwaukee. Everybody. Don't let them punk you and think about this shit. Otherwise, it's like the Packers beating the shit out of the Vikings. You don't want that. So then we have October 3rd in Dallas. Get your tickets for that. And then October 16th and 17th San Jose and Sacramento. And then Terry Town, November 13th, Boston, November 14th. Those Terry Town ones are almost going. Get those now if you want them. So do that. Shut up and give me murder.com. Also follow on social media. We are at small town murder on Instagram at small town pod on Facebook. So hang out with us there. Definitely get Patreon Patreon dot com. Last slash crime in sports is where you get all of the bonus material. Anybody five dollars a month or above. You are going to get every goddamn thing that we put out. First of all, as soon as you subscribe, you're going to get hundreds of backbones episodes, so many almost 400. And then you get new ones every other week. One crime in sports. One small town murder this week. No different for crime in sports hostage situations. All different weird ones and how they work out because they're crazy. Samuel Jackson one, no, well, we might, you know, then for small, for small town murder, we did the crash already that based on your poll, it's going to be Corey Richens, part three, all of her kids statements come in about what actually happened that night. And what kind of a mother she is. And her statement is wild. You need to hear this shit to believe it. And then after that is going to be prison or dating games. Can't wait. God damn Patreon right now. Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of that. And you also get everything we put out crime in sports, your stupid opinion, small town murder, all ad free and you get a shout out at the end of the show, which is right now. Jimmy hit me with the names of the best fucking people in the world. Hit me with them right. God damn now. This week's executive producer Gary Howard. He's in Jacksonville, Florida and happy hours in Splendora, Texas. I feel it till you crisscross in the South. Oh, it's not going to work. Yeah. Paper magic trader also. Thank you so much. Thank you, amazing. You're the best. Thank you other producers this week. Winnie Grunsey, Fartsy. I don't know what that means, but happy birthday, Winnie. She got Farts when she grunts, she pushed his heart. Heidi Griffin, Liz Vazquez, Peyton Meadows, Janice Hill, Melissa Magic, Jonathan Phipps, and Bill McClellan in Scotland. It's been a minute since we were eight. We had a kid like 35 years ago when we first started this. Yeah, really. The kid just graduated law school. Stacy Winder, Ashley Kloss, and Perseval with no last name. Cora Jean Jayzick, or Jazzick, Renee Madsen, Marsden. That's it. Sarah Warner, Zoe with no last name. Carrie Thompson, Frank Janice, Sadoris Trober, Tropper, Troff, perhaps laugh. Is that that's how it's spelled? T-R-A-U, Alyssa Kirchberg, I am Mass Holyo, Dex machine. Joshua Kibisny, Kubisny, and Mitchell, Tino with no last name. Nick Rigel, Regelle, Dustin Stewart, and Penner. Sky with no last name. Kalissa, Ober Helmen, Ober Helmen, Police, Kalissa. That's a two tough name. All right. Amanda Kelly, Atlanta McKeag, Matt with no last name. Sean Benoit, or Ben Benoit. I don't know. Benoit, Benoit, Bethany DeVal, Trevor Golden, Law of Leaves, Jonah Gurman, or German, or Hermann. For you, Jones. Jessica Ramsey, Becky Crosby, Kathy with no last name. Keith Law, Danny Kaiser, Gloria Torres, Jessica Freeman, Dave Wilton, Olga Bergowski, Rachel Dawn, Dana Nelder, Jennifer Van Nida, Vanonaida. The Cady Katie, it's Katie, probably with two T's, like mean girls, Wilson Stinky with no last name, Renee Wapsock, Power Nile, Pawini, Paul Winnie, Pa, yep, Renee, I'm blowing it. Amanda Ross, Jamie Headland, Leah Goforth, Mudron, Mudron, Ashley with no last names, Steve Osborne, Stephanie with no last name, Tatl Turtle, Melissa, Mariska, Mariska Summers, Sashka Samar, Sophie M. Emily. The Hayes, Victoria Brooke, Kenny Winalas named Megan 2.0, Whitney Conner, Amanda W. Stacey Lawson, Frank Noren Brock, Candice Bishop, Stephanie Sloan, Bridget Grim, David Mendoza, David Mendoza, Genmeyer, Kristen Henson, Stephanie Winalas named Janelle Bassett, Lagume Wolf, Rosa Beans, Rachel Montgomery, Cedar Roup, or Rupp, Sadar, Sadar Rupp, it's Cedar, it's spelled Cedar, Ebony or Ebone, Gregory, it's from Ebone, Supra, Ebone, John would know last name, Trisha Downes, Jen Jones, all about that, Jennifer Jones, Jenny Jones, J Strow, Jen Womack, Veronica, and the last name, Diana Hart, Commissioner Red, KT, the letters, K and T, Candice LaJune, Steph, like the camp, like the camp with the cancer water, that's not good. Steph Martin, Caitlin Simpson, Carrie Tangy, Tangy, Spinsany, Spinsens, what is that, Spinsane, Mike Coite, like us, our prices are spinsane, everybody. Joe would know last name, Sally, Bottle, Bottle, Don Honebock, Erica would know last name, Don Cedroni, Cedron, Cedron, Larry Hurd, that's so easy, Stephen Kramer, that's gross, Kathy Klein, Lindsey Batman, I think it is Batman, not Bateman, Paige Christian, like Bale who also played Batman, Cassidy Smith, T. Potty, BB 340, Caleb Danielle's, nope, that's Daniel's, Alexa Davis, Chrissy would know last name, Kayla would know last name, Dave Broughton, it has been Broughton, Derek Lee, Jonathan Dumber, really, Mary C's Liz Liz check, C'sl C'sl check, yeah, C'sl check, okay, Christopher Walshili, Walshili, Walshili, Walshili, Walshili, Tracey, that's not Rebecca, Tracey Lahaki, that's why, Cynthia, Cynthia, Cynthia, Cynthia, Fry, Cynthia, Javon, Apple liner, a poll, a polliner, Joseph Killin, MH Laurie, John S. Christoday, Kathy would know last name, Michelle Viata, Matt would know last name, Jennifer would know last name, Shalei Emmert, Doris Rogers, Kayla Markwart, Sheree Chance, Hannah would know last name, Megan Bazon, Bazonia, Melania, nope, that's Melony, no, that is Melania, Strelely, Strails, Strahel, Jenna Grundel, what, that's not good, slip TV, drummer guy, Hannah, Heather Glarezio, Sarah Anderson, Brandy Williams, Max Sandra, Miles Plager, man, Rachel Claudel, Claudelle, April Mercedes Idemoris, Laura would know last name, Cheryl Norquay, Alex the Great, and then all of her patrons that do this for us, you're the best, thank you, thank you everybody, so much, we cannot tell you how much we appreciate all that you do for us, all that you're there for us, we just can't thank you enough for what you do. Show to the shows, buying Patreon, just supporting like crazy, everything, listening, telling people about it, posting about it, we really, really appreciate it, if you want to hang out with, yeah, fuck yeah, if you want to follow us on social media, shut up and give me murder.com as links to every possible thing that's connected with us, so go there, find us, hang out with us, keep coming back and until next week everybody, it's been our pleasure, bye.