06-11-2011, 11:34 AM
i've been meaning to do a post on women on florida's death row. i will this weekend while court slows down.
a word about Judge Perry...he appears a cuddly teddy bear, and i love him to bits for his scholarly fair treatment of the law and the case. he is JUDICIOUS in applying the law. and smart as hell, he will not be overturned on appeals i am certain.
but there is another side you may not know.
he was the prosecutor in this florida case, cited here, and he not only prosecuted but attended her execution. he's no wimp!
she was a greedy ruthless bitch who even watched her disabled son drown as he screamed for her to help him.
Perry on her execution: “Throughout this saga, she did not express one iota of remorse or regret,” Perry said. “She was absolutely terrified. And you could see the terror on her.”
Judy Buenoano, known as the "Black Widow," was executed in Florida's electric chair following her 1985 conviction for poisoning her husband, Air Force sergeant James Goodyear, in 1971. Goodyear had died barely three months after returning from Vietnam suffering from symptoms staff physicians never quite identified. His body was exhumed 12 years later after Buenoano became a suspect in another case and found to contain arsenic.
In 1984, a jury convicted Buenoano of killing her partially paralyzed 19-year-old son, Michael Goodyear, and sentenced her to life in prison. Michael wore heavy metal leg braces and he was unable to walk or use his hands. On May 13th, 1980 Judi took Michael and his younger brother James canoeing on the East River. Sadly the canoe capsized. James and Judi were able to get out from under the upturned canoe but Michael, weighed down by the heavy braces didn't stand a chance and drowned.
In 1984, a jury convicted Buenoano of attempting to kill her boyfriend, Pensacola businessman John Gentry, and sentenced her to 12 years imprisonment. On June 25th 1983 Judi announced she was pregnant and John went out to get some champagne to celebrate. When he started his car a bomb exploded and he was seriously injured as a result. John later said Judi had been giving him vitamins. In fact, she was not pregnant and had booked a cruise for herself and her children. She had also recently been telling her friends that John had a terminal illness. Several of the alleged vitamin capsules were recovered and found to contain the arsenic.
She collected more than $240,000 in insurance money from the deaths of her husband, a son, and a boyfriend in Colorado, but was never prosecuted. Insurance benefits were also the motive in each of the Florida cases which resulted in conviction. Buenoano never admitted any of the killings. Buenoano was the first woman executed in Florida since 1848, and the third executed in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
a word about Judge Perry...he appears a cuddly teddy bear, and i love him to bits for his scholarly fair treatment of the law and the case. he is JUDICIOUS in applying the law. and smart as hell, he will not be overturned on appeals i am certain.
but there is another side you may not know.
he was the prosecutor in this florida case, cited here, and he not only prosecuted but attended her execution. he's no wimp!
she was a greedy ruthless bitch who even watched her disabled son drown as he screamed for her to help him.
Perry on her execution: “Throughout this saga, she did not express one iota of remorse or regret,” Perry said. “She was absolutely terrified. And you could see the terror on her.”
Judy Buenoano, known as the "Black Widow," was executed in Florida's electric chair following her 1985 conviction for poisoning her husband, Air Force sergeant James Goodyear, in 1971. Goodyear had died barely three months after returning from Vietnam suffering from symptoms staff physicians never quite identified. His body was exhumed 12 years later after Buenoano became a suspect in another case and found to contain arsenic.
In 1984, a jury convicted Buenoano of killing her partially paralyzed 19-year-old son, Michael Goodyear, and sentenced her to life in prison. Michael wore heavy metal leg braces and he was unable to walk or use his hands. On May 13th, 1980 Judi took Michael and his younger brother James canoeing on the East River. Sadly the canoe capsized. James and Judi were able to get out from under the upturned canoe but Michael, weighed down by the heavy braces didn't stand a chance and drowned.
In 1984, a jury convicted Buenoano of attempting to kill her boyfriend, Pensacola businessman John Gentry, and sentenced her to 12 years imprisonment. On June 25th 1983 Judi announced she was pregnant and John went out to get some champagne to celebrate. When he started his car a bomb exploded and he was seriously injured as a result. John later said Judi had been giving him vitamins. In fact, she was not pregnant and had booked a cruise for herself and her children. She had also recently been telling her friends that John had a terminal illness. Several of the alleged vitamin capsules were recovered and found to contain the arsenic.
She collected more than $240,000 in insurance money from the deaths of her husband, a son, and a boyfriend in Colorado, but was never prosecuted. Insurance benefits were also the motive in each of the Florida cases which resulted in conviction. Buenoano never admitted any of the killings. Buenoano was the first woman executed in Florida since 1848, and the third executed in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.