Virginia Caudill is the only woman on Kentucky Death Row for a brutal robbery and murder of an elderly lady. According to court documents Virginia Caudill and Johnathan Goforth would enter the home of the elderly victim and would viciously beat the woman to death before stealing her belongings. Virginia Caudill would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Virginia Caudill 2021 Information
Name:
CAUDILL, VIRGINIA SUSAN Active Inmate DEATH ROW
PID # / DOC #:
244654 / 144124
Institution Start Date:
3/31/2000
Expected Time To Serve (TTS):
DEATH SENTENCE
Classification:
Maximum (Level 5)
Minimum Expiration of Sentence Date (Good Time Release Date): ?
DEATH SENTENCE
Parole Eligibility Date:
DEATH SENTENCE
Maximum Expiration of Sentence Date:
DEATH SENTENCE
Location:
KY Corr. Inst. for Women
Age:
59
Race:
White
Gender:
F
Eye Color:
Green
Hair Color:
Brown
Height:
5′ 04″
Weight:
200
Virginia Caudill Other News
Virginia Caudill and Jonathon Goforth broke into Lonetta White’s home and beat her to death with a hammer when she refused to give them money to buy drugs. After ransacking her home for valuables, they wrapped her body in a carpet and loaded it in the trunk of her own car. They drove the car to an empty field, doused it with gasoline, and set it on fire. An autopsy revealed that she died from massive head injuries, including blows that caved in parts of her skull.
Virginia Caudill More News
A federal judge on Monday rejected an appeal from the lone woman awaiting execution in Kentucky after concluding her attorney wasn’t deficient at trial and there wasn’t any evidence a co-defendant acted on his own.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves in Lexington moves 53-year-old Virginia Susan Caudill a step closer to an execution date as the state and several inmates battle through litigation over whether a lethal injection process involving either one or two drugs passes constitutional muster.
In a 125-page opinion, Reeves turned away a multitude of arguments brought by Caudill concerning the effectiveness of her attorney in handling witnesses and a strategy based on claiming that a co-defendant, 53-year-old Johnathan Wayne Goforth, had more of a motive to rob and kill 73-year-old Lonetta White in Lexington on March 15, 1998.
The two were convicted in 2000 of bludgeoning White to death with a hammer and stuffing her body in the trunk of her own car, which was later set ablaze.
Caudill claimed at trial that Goforth, an associate who frequented the same drug den as her, unexpectedly robbed and beat White to repay a drug debt after tying up Caudill in a separate room.
“There was no evidence that Caudill had attempted to stop the assault on White or flee the residence once it began,” Reeves wrote.
Reeves noted that Caudill followed Goforth as he drove White’s car with her body stuffed in the trunk to a remote area with plans to burn it. During the drive, Caudill made no attempt to flee, Reeves wrote, and continued to associate with Goforth for months after the slaying.
“These are not the actions of a person whose motive was merely to borrow money from White,” Reeves wrote. “Instead, they are the actions of a person actively complicit in the murder.”
Prosecutors say the pair fled to Florida and Mississippi in the months after the slaying. Police arrested Caudill in New Orleans about eight months after the killing.
Caudill may still appeal to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Goforth has a similar appeal pending before U.S. District Judge Karen K. Caldwell.
Kentucky is currently prohibited from executing any inmates under an injunction handed down by Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd in 2010. In December, Shepherd cleared the state’s proposed use of one or two drugs to carry out a lethal injection.
But, Shepherd ruled, executions cannot go forward because there are issues with how inmates are handled and their mental state assessed in the days and weeks leading up to an execution date.
Kentucky has carried out three executions since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. The last inmate put to death was in 2008.
Lisa Jo Chamberlin is sitting on Mississippi death row for the murders of two people. According to court documents Lisa Jo Chamberlin and her boyfriend Roger Gillett were manufacturing meth and believed that the female victim was going to tell the police about their drug dealing ways decided to kill her. When they arrived at her home they also found her boyfriend so the pair decided to kill them both and dispose of the bodies.
When people saw Lisa Jo Chamberlin and Roger Gillett driving around in the victims vehicle while dealing meth they reported it to the police who would investigate and soon the pair were charged with murder.
Lisa Jo Chamberlin Other News
he investigation into this gruesome double murder began when Kansas authorities received a report that the defendant Lisa Jo Chamberlin and her boyfriend and co-defendant, Roger Gillett, were in possession of a stolen vehicle and were manufacturing methamphetamine at the Gillett farm in Russell County, Kansas.
¶ 3. Based on the information received, Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) Officer Matthew Lyon obtained two search warrants. One warrant authorized the search of 606 North Ash, where Gillett and Chamberlin were staying, and the second warrant authorized the search of the Gillett farm.
¶ 4. On March 29, 2004, at 3:45 p.m., officers began a search at 606 North Ash. Lyon and other KBI officers participated in the search. The search was completed at 5:05 p.m. KBI officers found Gillett and Chamberlin, as well as methamphetamine and other drug paraphernalia, at 606 North Ash. KBI officers arrested Gillett and Chamberlin that day. Chamberlin was detained at the Russell County Jail.
¶ 5. At approximately 5:13 p.m. on March 29, Lyon attempted to interview Chamberlin. After Lyon read Chamberlin her Miranda1 rights, Chamberlin told Lyon that she did not want to answer any questions. The interview ended at approximately 5:20 p.m. Only identifying questions were asked and answered in that interview.
¶ 6. Chamberlin was charged with a number of drug-related offenses. Meanwhile, at approximately 5:15 p.m., other officers began to search the Gillett farm. At the farm, the first officers to arrive discovered a white Dodge Dakota pickup truck with Mississippi plates parked in a metal shed and a white freezer that was taped shut with duct tape and plugged in inside a wooden granary.
¶ 7. Upon opening the freezer, the officers discovered a dismembered body, later identified as Vernon Hullett, and a black plastic trash bag which contained severed body parts. The officers secured the premises while they sought and obtained a third search warrant. Armed with this third search warrant, which authorized the officers to search for evidence in connection with the murder investigation, the officers returned to the Gillett farm, pulled the male body out of the freezer and discovered another body frozen in a liquid in the bottom of the freezer. The officers thawed the contents of the freezer and extracted a second body, later identified as Linda Heintzelman. The search at the farm was completed the next day, March 30, at 5:22 p.m.
¶ 8. On the evening of March 29, Officer Lyon received a call from the Russell County Sheriff advising him that two bodies had been found at the Gillett farm. Officers conducted three interviews with Chamberlin during the course of the day on March 30.
¶ 9. At the end of Chamberlin’s last interview on the afternoon on March 30, she agreed to show KBI Officer Delbert Hawel the location where she and Gillett had dumped evidence at the landfill in Russell. At approximately 8:00 p.m., KBI Officer Max Barrett, Hawel, and Chamberlin rode to the Russell County dump, and Chamberlin indicated where some of the physical evidence from the murders had been deposited. The landfill was secured until it could be searched. Barrett testified that later that evening, after returning to the sheriff’s office, he was contacted by one of the corrections officers who told him that Chamberlin wanted to talk to a KBI agent. Since the KBI agents had left for the evening, Chamberlin indicated that she would talk with Barrett. Barrett testified that when he spoke with Chamberlin she expressed her desire to talk to one of the agents, and he relayed her request to an agent.
¶ 10. The next day, March 31, officers returned to the dump and recovered seven plastic trash bags, containing, among other things, one of Hullett’s work shirts, pants with Hullett’s name on them, a pillow heavily stained with blood, a camera, a purse containing identification which apparently belonged to Heintzelman, a wallet and identification that belonged to Hullett, a Hattiesburg, Mississippi, phone book, and the cardboard center of a roll of duct tape. Barrett packaged the evidence and transferred it to Hattiesburg Police Officer Rusty Keyes.
¶ 11. During the three interviews on March 30 and the interview on the morning of March 31, Lisa Jo Chamberlin explained her relationship with Gillett and her participation in the robbery and murders of Hullett and Heintzelman. Chamberlin met Gillett in Oregon, where she was born and raised. They lived together for a brief time in Oregon before they moved to Russell, Kansas, where they lived with some of Gillett’s relatives. Around the beginning of March, Chamberlin and Gillett drove from Russell County, Kansas, to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where they stayed with Gillett’s cousin, Vernon Hullett, and his live-in girlfriend, Linda Heintzelman. On March 6, shortly after arriving in Hattiesburg, Gillett and Chamberlin wrecked their car while following Hullett and Heintzelman in Heintzelman’s pickup truck on Highway 49. According to Chamberlin, Heintzelman changed lanes too closely in front of their vehicle, causing them to run into the rear of Heintzelman’s truck. Gillett’s car was badly damaged, but Heintzelman’s truck sustained only minor damage.
¶ 12. According to Chamberlin, Heintzelman promised to report the accident as a claim against her insurance and then divide the insurance proceeds with Chamberlin and Gillett. Heintzelman never submitted the accident report to her insurance company.
¶ 13. Chamberlin told KBI officers that on an unknown date in March 2004, she, Gillett, Hullett, and Heintzelman were all at Hullett’s residence. Hullett and Heintzelman suggested that Gillett and Chamberlin get their own place to live. Chamberlin agreed, but Gillett wanted to stay at Hullett’s. Chamberlin and Gillett argued about moving. Unable to drive her car in its damaged condition, Chamberlin left on foot and returned that evening to find Gillett standing on the front porch smoking a cigarette.
¶ 14. When Chamberlin and Gillett entered the house, Gillett became violent with Heintzelman, accusing her of not being truthful about reporting the accident to her insurance company. Gillett instructed Chamberlin to get his gun from under the mattress in the bedroom. Chamberlin complied. Chamberlin and Gillett cut the telephone wires so that Hullett and Heintzelman could not call the police. Gillett fired one round inside the house to scare Hullett and Heintzelman.
¶ 15. Gillett punched and hit Hullett several times in an attempt to get the combination to Hullett’s safe. Upon discovering that all the beer in the house had been consumed, Chamberlin left again to get more beer. When Chamberlin returned, Heintzelman was bent over the safe and was not wearing any pants. Chamberlin inquired as to whether Gillett had raped Heintzelman. Gillett explained that he wanted to “break her,” so he made her take her clothes off and used a beer bottle to rape her. Still unsuccessful in opening the safe, Chamberlin became impatient and told Gillett something similar to “let’s just kill them and get out of here.”
¶ 16. According to Chamberlin, Gillett bashed Hullett in the head with a hammer while Hullett was sitting in a chair in the living room. Gillett also slashed Hullett’s throat. Chamberlin went out of the house and came back in a number of times over several hours while Heintzelman was lying on the floor, injured but “still breathing.” Eventually, Chamberlin suggested that they smother Heintzelman. Chamberlin and Gillett worked together to bind Heintzelman’s hands behind her back so that she could not struggle with them. Gillett lifted Heintzelman’s head, and Chamberlin placed a bag over it. Chamberlin told the officers that she was unable to complete the asphyxiation of Heintzelman and went outside. She said that Heintzelman was still breathing when she went outside, but when she returned, Heintzelman was dead.
¶ 17. Chamberlin told the officers that she assisted in cleaning up the murder scene. She helped move the bodies to the bathroom, where Gillett cut off Hullett’s head and arms and she held garbage bags open while Gillett placed Hullett’s arms inside the bags. Chamberlin described how she assisted in loading Heintzelman’s body and then Hullett’s body, along with the black trash bag, into the freezer and how she taped the freezer shut as Gillett stood on top of the freezer to hold it closed. Chamberlin and Gillett took Hullett’s pickup truck and transported the freezer containing the two bodies on the back of that truck from Hullett’s house to Kansas. After arriving in Kansas, they unloaded the freezer and plugged it in at the Gillett farm. She indicated that they took the items they transported from Hullett’s house and disposed of them at the Russell dump. Also, she agreed to cook some methamphetamine for five hundred dollars because they needed money. She described how they discarded the trash from making methamphetamine at the public swimming pool and how on the next day she and Gillett were arrested.
¶ 18. During trial, Dr. Donald Pojman, who performed the autopsies on Hullett and Heintzelman, testified that the cause of Heintzelman’s death was from “[s]harp-force injuries of the torso and the neck,” “blunt-force injuries of the head,” and “asphyxiation,” and that the cause of Hullett’s death was blunt-force injuries to the left side of the head.
Lisa Jo Chamberlin More News
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday announced it would not review a Mississippi death row inmate’s case after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated her sentence last year.
Lisa Chamberlin and her then-boyfriend, Roger Lee Gillett, were convicted of two counts capital murder in the March 2004 slayings of Gillet’s cousin, Vernon Hulett, 34, and Hulett’s girlfriend, Linda Heintzelman, 37, in Hattiesburg. Their bodies were transported to Kansas in a freezer.
Chamberlin is the only woman on Mississippi’s death row. The Supreme Court’s ruling means her death sentence stands.
The dismembered bodies were found at an abandoned farmhouse owned by Gillett’s father.
Both were sentenced to death. Gillett’s sentence has since been reduced and he is serving a life sentence with the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
The Supreme Court does not explain why it declines to hear some cases.
The Cornell University Legal Information Institute explains that the Supreme Court’s decision to deny the petition doesn’t mean the court agrees with the lower court’s ruling.
“It simply means that fewer than four justices determined that the circumstances of the decision of the lower court warrant a review by the Supreme Court,” the LII website explains.
Blanche Taylor Moore is a black widow whose partners have died in mysterious ways over the years. Blanche Taylor Moore was arrested and convicted on the death of her boyfriend who died from arsenic poisoning but she is also of suspected of murdering her first husband, his mother and the attempted murder of her second husband. Needless to say you get mixed up with Blanche Taylor Moore there is a good chance your food or drink is going to start tasting funny. Blanche Taylor Moore is on Death Row in North Carolina
Blanche Taylor Moore 2023 Information
BLANCHE K MOORE
Offender Number:
0288088
Inmate Status:
ACTIVE
Gender:
FEMALE
Race:
WHITE
Ethnic Group:
UNKNOWN
Birth Date:
02/17/1933
Age:
90
Current Location:
NCCI WOMEN
Blanche Taylor Moore Other News
In 1952, Blanche Taylor Moore married James Napoleon Taylor, a veteran and furniture restorer;[2] they had two children, one in 1953 and another in 1959. In 1954, she began working at Kroger as a cashier. By 1959, she’d been promoted to head cashier (roughly the equivalent of a customer service manager today), the highest job available to a female employee at Kroger at the time. In 1962, she began an affair with Raymond Reid, the manager of the store where she worked. James Taylor died in 1971.
As with Parker Kiser five years earlier, the cause of death was initially reported as a heart attack.[1][2] After her husband’s death in 1971, the two began dating publicly. By 1985, however, the relationship had soured. There are indications that she began to date Kevin Denton, the regional manager for the Triad area; however, that relationship ended, and Moore filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Denton and Kroger in October 1985.[2] Denton was forced to resign, and Kroger settled the case out of court two years later for $275,000. In 1985, Moore also accused an unknown “pervert” of starting two fires that damaged her mobile home. On Easter Sunday, she met Rev. Dwight Moore, the new pastor of the Carolina United Church of Christ in rural Alamance County, who was divorced, and they began meeting for meals.
At the time, Blanche Taylor Moore was still dating Raymond Reid.[3] However, she had to hide her relationship with Rev. Moore because her lawsuit against Kroger maintained that she was “completely alienated and antagonistic towards men and has not been able to maintain any meaningful social contacts with the opposite sex.”[2] While she was dating Rev. Moore, she asked him to procure some arsenic-based ant killer for her.[1] In 1986, Reid developed what was initially diagnosed as a case of shingles. He was hospitalized in April of that year, and died on October 7, 1986. Doctors indicated the cause of death was Guillain–Barré syndrome.[2] The lawsuit was settled a year after Reid’s death.
[2] Blanche Taylor Moore and Reverend Dwight Moore began seeing each other publicly shortly after Reid’s death. They planned to marry, but in 1987, Blanche developed breast cancer. The wedding date was pushed back to November 1988,[2] but Moore developed a mysterious intestinal ailment that required two surgeries to correct. On 19 April 1989 the couple were married and honeymooned over a long weekend in New Jersey.[2] They returned on a Monday, and on Wednesday Rev. Moore collapsed ill after eating a chicken sandwich.[2] After two days of suffering, he was admitted to Alamance County Hospital on April 28. For the next two days, Moore was transferred between that hospital and North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. Finally, he was admitted to North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill.
Doctors David Wohns, Jonathan Serody, Mark Murphy and George Sanders, after discussions with the hospital toxicologist, ordered a toxicology screen after Blanche told them he’d been working in the yard after getting back from their trip. The results came back on March 13. They showed Dwight Moore had 20 times the lethal dose of arsenic in his system—at the time, the most arsenic found in a living patient in the hospital’s history. Dwight Moore had a particularly robust constitution, and survived. However, he has never regained full sensation in his hands and feet.[3] In a 2010 interview with WXII-TV in Winston-Salem, Moore said he still suffers tremors in his hands and weakness in his legs.[4] The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation was notified, and exhumations occurred on Taylor, Reid, and her father.
[2] Subsequent autopsies showed elevated levels of arsenic in all of the bodies. It also emerged that doctors at Baptist Hospital had ordered a toxicology screen for Raymond Reid. The results showed a massive amount of arsenic in his system. However, on the day the test came back, the resident responsible for caring for Reid rotated to another hospital, and the new resident never passed the results up the chain of command. As a result, Reid received the final, fatal doses of arsenic in his hospital bed.
[3] The SBI got suspicious of Blanche Taylor Moore when they found out she had tried to get Dwight Moore’s pension changed so she would be the principal beneficiary. They also knew she had lied about how much money she had received from Raymond Reid’s estate. During interviews, Blanche Moore mentioned that both Dwight Moore and Raymond Reid felt depressed and had probably been taking arsenic—something that was found highly improbable. Additionally, it emerged Moore had still been sleeping with Reid around the same time she began dating Dwight Moore. Blanche also had Dwight’s hair cut in an attempt to prevent hair samples from being obtained by the SBI, but pubic hair samples were used instead.
On July 18, 1989, Blanche Taylor Moore was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of Raymond Reid. Prosecutors opted to charge her with killing Reid rather than trying to kill Dwight Moore because they felt they’d be able to show her spooning arsenic-laced pudding to Reid. In Dwight Moore’s case, doctors had recognized the signs of arsenic poisoning early on, making it more difficult to find out who was poisoning him.
[3] Trial, conviction and sentence The trial opened in Winston-Salem on October 21, 1990. Moore adamantly denied ever giving Reid any food. However, the state introduced fifty-three witnesses who testified about her daily trips to the hospital, bearing food. The state had an easier time than expected in making such a complex case because Reid’s ex-wife and sons sued Baptist Hospital for malpractice. They were able to get the normal statute of limitations for wrongful death thrown out because they were able to prove that Blanche, as executor of Raymond Reid’s estate, should have been the person to find out about the toxicology screen. The Reid family argued that Moore fraudulently prevented them from finding out about the test.
[3] Under the terms of a deal between the Forsyth County district attorney’s office and the Reid family’s lawyers, most of the evidence against Blanche Taylor Moore was gathered by the Reid family’s lawyers. Although the courts have interpreted the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination very broadly for criminal cases, such protections usually don’t apply in civil cases. Civil law also allows much more latitude for searches and subpoenas.
[3] Blanche Taylor Moore was convicted on November 14.[5] On November 17, the jury recommended the death penalty. On January 18, 1991, the presiding judge concurred with the jury and sentenced Moore to die by lethal injection. She currently resides at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women. She is prisoner # 0288088. She wrote music in the past, and spends her time writing poetry.[6] Because of the automatic appeals in progress, Moore has been able to stave off execution for over 20 years. She maintains her innocence to this day. One of her attorneys, David Tamer, misappropriated client funds, including Moore’s, and was convicted of embezzlement. He also had a history of mental problems
.[7] In 2010 Blanche Taylor Moore and the 11 other death-row inmates from Forsyth County filed a motion to convert their sentences to life imprisonment on the basis of the state’s Racial Justice Act. Essentially the issue was the racial composition of the juries.[8] Dwight Moore told WXII that he has no objections to his ex-wife seeking to have her death sentence overturned.[4] Health issues in prison have required chemotherapy and radiation therapy.[9]
Blanche Taylor Moore Videos
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Blanche Taylor Moore More News
In October of 1990, President George H.W. Bush condemned Iraq’s takeover of Kuwait. Famed American conductor Leonard Bernstein, composer of “West Side Story,” died at 72. And a meteorite exploded above the Pacific Ocean.
Closer to home, an unimaginable murder trial was the talk of North Carolina
Many knew 57-year-old Blanche Kiser Taylor Moore as a middle-aged churchgoer with a grandmotherly appearance and a cool demeanor – the last person you’d suspect of being a serial killer.
“We’re talking about an average, ordinary neighborhood lady,” former Alamance County Sheriff Richard Frye told The Associated Press in 1989.
Yet Moore was convicted of murder in the 1986 arsenic-poisoning death of her boyfriend, Raymond Carlton Reid Sr.
A book would be written, and a TV movie made. Soon, the nation would see her in another light – as the “Black Widow,” a diminutive figure with a dark side — suspected of methodically poisoning at least four other people close to her, going back as far as 1966.
Fast forward to 2019, and Moore, who will turn 86 on Sunday, is the oldest person on North Carolina’s death row.
She has been at the N.C. Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh since Nov. 16, 1990. She’ll likely die from cancer (which she’s fought in the past) or natural causes rather than for her crimes. It is a fate she didn’t leave to her suspected string of victims.
She was born Blanche Kiser in Concord, North Carolina, but spent much of her adult life in Alamance County. It seemed a perfectly normal existence – the daughter of a preacher, she went to church, had children and grandchildren and worked for many years at Kroger in Burlington.
It was at the grocery store that Blanche Taylor, who was married in 1952 and widowed in 1973, met and later began dating Reid, a divorced store manager.
She rose to head cashier, the highest position a woman could hold at the time and was said to be a good employee.
But in interviews with the Baltimore Sun for a 1989 story, other workers called her “vindictive,” and “two-faced.”
Moore and Reid worked together for years at Kroger, beginning in 1962, according to court records, but didn’t begin a romantic relationship until 1979.
“Mom never expected to spend the rest of her life by herself. She had too much to offer,” Blanche’s daughter, Cynthia Taylor Chatman told the Baltimore Sun in 1989.
In the same article, her other daughter, Vanessa Woods, said Reid “was a very good man. He was good to us.”
According to court testimony, Reid told a Kroger co-worker that he and Blanche “probably would have been married, except she wanted to be there next to her family.”
Kroger made Reid move around quite a bit, transferring him several times in 1979 and 1980 until he became a store manager at a Winston-Salem location. Blanche preferred to stay closer to home, working in Burlington her entire career, except for a brief stint at a store in Durham. She left Kroger on Oct. 17, 1985.
A couple months after she quit, Blanche had Ray Reid over on New Year’s Eve and served him some of her homemade potato soup. On Jan. 1, 1986, he rang in the new year with severe nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Reid, not known as someone who got sick much, missed more than four weeks of work during the next few months. His long and distinguished career ended May 29, 1986.
Less than five months later, Reid died at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. Puzzled physicians initially attributed his Oct. 7, 1986, death to Guillain-Barré syndrome. He was 50 years old.
It would take another remarkable case of poisoning, suffering and astonishing survival to explain Reid’s mysterious demise and send a murderer to death row.
“I guess it brought back a lot of memories. I have no doubt that I was poisoned,” the Rev. Dwight Moore said in 1994 after a hearing before the State Supreme Court.
Dwight Moore was the divorced pastor of what was then Carolina United Church of Christ in Alamance County.
According to Jim Schutze’s 1993 book about the case, “Preacher’s Girl: The Life and Crimes of Blanche Taylor Moore,” he met Blanche on Easter Sunday 1985 and the two began spending time together.
The relationship deepened, and marriage was discussed. The two were wed April 19, 1989.
The first sign of trouble happened right after they returned from their honeymoon. Dwight Moore became violently ill after eating a chicken sandwich his new wife offered him.
Several weeks later, he was at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill.
The Greensboro News & Record described the ordeal in a 2015 retrospective on the case:
He was near death at a Chapel Hill hospital, hooked to a ventilator, his liver, kidneys and heart failing. He wasn’t expected to live.
Doctors threw a Hail Mary: They ordered blood tests for herbicide poisoning, because he had used the chemicals before his illness.
The results revealed more arsenic than his doctors had ever seen in a living person – 100 times the normal amount.
The hospital alerted police, who interviewed him as he lay on what was supposed to be his deathbed.
Miraculously, some might say through divine intervention, the pastor survived.
The shocking discovery led to an investigation. Detectives heard Dwight Moore’s story and then began probing into Blanche Moore’s background. They discovered that her first husband as well as Reid had died under suspicious circumstances.
Authorities exhumed the bodies of Reid, Blanche’s father, P.D. Kiser Sr., her mother-in-law, Isla Taylor, her first husband, James N. Taylor, and a former co-worker, Joseph Mitchell.
Two of those exhumed bodies, those of her father, who died in 1966, and mother-in-law, had high levels of arsenic, but not lethal doses, the medical examiner concluded. Mitchell’s body did not have elevated levels of arsenic
But autopsies revealed a new cause of death – arsenic poisoning – for Reid, who had arsenic levels 30 times higher than normal, and James Taylor, whose 1973 death at age 45 had been attributed to a heart attack. His arsenic levels were 60 times higher than normal.
On July 18, 1989, authorities arrested Blanche Moore and charged her with first-degree murder in the deaths of Taylor and Reid and assault with a deadly weapon in the poisoning of Dwight Moore.
In October 1990, Blanche Moore went on trial in Forsyth County for the death of Raymond Reid.
The prosecution got a boost in the case just days before the trial when Forsyth County Superior Court Judge William Freeman ruled that prosecutors could discuss the poisonings James Taylor, Dwight Moore and Kiser even though the trial was only about the murder of Reid.
During the trial, the prosecution recounted Reid’s agonizing death in meticulous and horrific detail.
On May 30, 1986, as Reid’s condition worsened, he was admitted to Wesley Long Hospital in Greensboro. He had been unable to keep down any solid food and according to court testimony, Dr. Norman H. Garrett Jr. thought he had acute gastroenteritis based on “his profound dehydration, nausea and vomiting.”
By June 5, Reid had gotten better and Garrett told Reid, with Blanche present, that he might be able to go home within a week. Instead, Reid became deathly ill and was transferred to North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem on June 13.
At Baptist Hospital, Dr. Robert Hamilton began with a preliminary diagnosis of Guillain Barre syndrome. Hamilton ran many tests but never saw the results of one that may have saved Reid’s life – a urine sample from Reid taken between June 27-28 showed “quite elevated” levels of arsenic.
Remarkably, Reid again improved. According to court records, Blanche sought and got permission from Dr. Hamilton to bring Reid food from home.
Soon after, Reid suffered a serious setback. Lisa Hutchens, the head nurse in the Intensive Care Unit, testified that she saw Blanche feeding Reid banana pudding on Oct. 1. A couple days later, she testified, she visited Reid’s room and said he was in “acute respiratory distress” and was very frightened.
“‘Please help me or I’m going to die,” Hutchens recalled Reid telling her.
The nurse testified that Blanche often brought Reid food from home such as iced tea, frozen yogurt, milkshakes, and soups.
Reid’s son Steven Reid testified that he visited his father on Oct. 4 and found him eating breakfast prepared by Blanche. A couple of days later, Steven had returned to school at East Carolina University when he got a call from Blanche telling him to get back to see his father as quickly as possible.
Steven Reid testified that when he arrived on the evening of Oct. 6, he hardly recognized his father. He was bloated and his “eyeballs were even starting to swell and his skin was splitting.”
Reid continued to get weaker and despite valiant efforts to save him, was pronounced dead Oct. 7 by Dr. Kyle Jackson, who blamed the death on complications from Guillain-Barre syndrome.
According to several witnesses, Blanche told doctors in the moments after Reid’s death that “We cannot have an autopsy. He has been through too much. He wouldn’t want to be cut on like this. We just – we cannot have one.”
When Reid’s body was exhumed from Pine Hill Cemetery in Burlington, an autopsy performed in Chapel Hill revealed “clearly recognizable” Mees lines across the fingernails of both hands, and the toxicology report showed arsenic in Reid’s liver “30 times higher than one might see in an average individual.”
The arsenic in Reid’s brain tissue was approximately 67 times higher than normal.
Dr. John D. Butts, the state’s chief medical examiner, concluded that “Reid died as a result of the complications of arsenic poisoning.”
Strengthening the state’s case, Dr. Vincent Guinn, a chemistry professor at the University of California-Irvine and an expert in the field of nuclear chemistry, concluded that the arsenic levels found in Reid’s hair corresponded “to a long period of ingestion of arsenic, multiple ingestions.”
According to court records, Dr. Guinn noted that on June 24, 1986, the arsenic in Reid’s hair sample was “roughly 70 times the normal level.”
Blanche Moore took the stand in her defense and denied ever feeding Reid in the ICU at the hospital. In fact, she denied ever seeing him “have any food at all during that time” or having ever taken food to him in the hospital.
She also denied discussing Reid’s autopsy with anyone and told the courtroom that she would not have been opposed to an autopsy. She also testified that though she had heard of Anti-Ant, an ant poison containing arsenic, she had never bought it or asked anyone to do so.
She flatly denied slipping arsenic to either of her husbands or Reid.
But several hospital workers, family members, and visitors testified that they did recall Blanche bringing Reid milkshakes from McDonald’s while he was hospitalized in Greensboro. A fellow Kroger employee, Gloria Head, recalled visiting Reid in the hospital and seeing a container of red Jell-O in Blanche’s purse. Dr. Garrett had previously testified that Reid had told him on May 30, 1986, that he began vomiting after eating Jell-O the previous night.
More troubling for the defense, a nurse testified that she saw Blanche bring peanut butter milkshakes, banana pudding, tomato pudding, corn bread, and milk for Reid and feeding him herself. Notes from the ICU unit read in court showed repeated instances where Reid complained later in the day of being nauseated after having been fed by Blanche.
The prosecution also brought forth several witnesses to connect Blanche with Anti-Ant, an ant poison containing arsenic that was available for sale at the time. Brenda Green, a Kroger co-worker, testified that she heard Blanche recommend Anti-Ant to a customer as a good ant killer
Dwight Moore testified that during the summer of 1985, Blanche showed him a bottle of Anti-Ant and asked him to buy some for her from Byrd’s Food Center in Glen Raven. Moore testified that he bought the Anti-Ant at Byrd’s and gave the bottle to Blanche.
Another former co-worker, Leonard Wolfe, who owned Ken’s Quickie Mart in Burlington, testified that Blanche Moore came into his store in early April 1989 and asking if he “had any Anti-Ant in stock.”
Prosecutor Janet Branch ripped into Blanche Moore time and again, making dramatic and emotionally wrought statements to the jury.
“He’s crying because his murderer isn’t coming to see him! Can you imagine anything more pitiful in this whole world? And he loves her with all his heart,” she said, describing Reid as he lay dying in the hospital.
Despite the damning and disturbing evidence, the defense seemed optimistic.
“Well, she hasn’t made a lot of comment about it, but in her chance to reflect on that, and see how she’s going to take that, she’s not going to take that. She’s going to come back out and she’s going to testify eventually, and her response to it is, ‘you’ll see. I’m not guilty. I’m not supposed to be in jail at all,'” one of her defense attorneys proclaimed.
But the jury disagreed, unanimously finding “the defendant, Blanche K. Taylor Moore, guilty of first-degree murder.”
Blanche Moore had maintained a detached demeanor during the trial, with a tight smile for the cameras tightly trained on her throughout. But as the guilty plea was read and jurors filed past, she wept.
“She said to me, the end has to come. Let it come. We’ll deal with it,” defense attorney David Tamer said afterward. “Although she was strong in that regard, it was painful to see her broken by that verdict.”
Blanche Moore’s family was also devastated. Because of the publicity in the case, many family members never believed that she would get a fair trial.
“Everything we’ve been able to learn about her is a picture of a model person,” one of her defense attorneys said after her conviction. “That in and of itself should have run up the reasonable-doubt flag for the jury, but I’m afraid there was just too much poison and too many different people.”
During the capital sentencing phase, the jury found as aggravating circumstances that Blanche Moore was motivated to kill for financial gain and that Reid’s murder was “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.”
On Nov. 16, 1990, she was sentenced to death. Ten days later, she got a stay of execution pending an appeal.
Her defense argued before the North Carolina State Supreme Court that Moore had not received a fair trial and that the other deaths should not have been allowed as evidence.
“Connecting the death of James Taylor with that of Raymond Reid and illness of Dwight Moore, unless they make that direct connection, then the evidence is clearly not admissible,” her defense team argued.
A Supreme Court justice posed the question to state attorneys: “How do you tie the defendant into these similar poisoning incidents? What is the evidence that connects her to them?”
The response was a crushing blow:
“I think if there’s any doubt about the tie-in between Blanche Moore and these three individuals and their arsenic poisoning, it comes from the actual confession letter itself, your honor.”
That confession letter is one of the many bizarre facets of this grim saga. It was supposedly a deathbed confession written by a homeless, now-deceased man named Garvin Thomas, who was said to be infatuated with Moore.
In the letter, Thomas allegedly confessed to killing Reid and trying to fatally poison Reid.
State handwriting experts, however, said Blanche Moore wrote the letter herself.
The state expert, a “questioned documents examiner and forensic chemist,” ruled out Thomas as the author to a 99-percent degree of certainty.
Former Forsyth County prosecutor Vince Rabil, along with Branch, was one of two attorneys tasked in 1990 with convicting Blanche Taylor Moore.
He recounted how he helped prove the confession letter was a forgery in a piece he wrote for Greensboro.com in December 2015.
“I came to feel that if the state could prove she actually wrote the chilling details in that letter, she had signed her own death warrant,” Rabil wrote.
The NC Supreme Court wrote that “the letter was offered into evidence by the State not as the dying declaration of Garvin Thomas but as evidence of defendant’s “deceptive plan to throw suspicion away from herself.”
In 1994, the high court concluded that Moore had received a fair trial and rejected the defense’s motions.
In doing so, the Supreme Court justices noted that “the State presented extensive circumstantial evidence marking the similarities between Reid’s death and the arsenic poisoning death of Taylor and the arsenic poisoning of Moore. Three different men either married to or intimately involved with (Blanche Taylor Moore) died, or barely escaped death, from arsenic poisoning, an unusual cause of death. In each case, defendant had motive (financial), opportunity (close relationship), and means (knowledge of and access to Anti-Ant).
“In each case medical evidence suggests that multiple doses of arsenic were administered to the victim over a long period of time, as opposed to one large fatal dose. In each case defendant was frequently alone with the victim in the hospital, and medical testimony suggests that certain of defendant’s visits in which she fed the victim corresponded with an onset of symptoms characteristic of arsenic poisoning.
“In each case, defendant was heard to say that she hated the victim or that the victim was cruel or evil. In the cases of Reid and Taylor, defendant was already seeing her next victim at the time of the arsenic assaults.”
Blanche Taylor Moore now passes the time in a cell in Raleigh. Her time there has been mostly uneventful, marked by two violations, one for disobeying orders on Feb. 22, 2008, and more alarmingly, for misuse of medicine in November 1996.
In May 1993, a made-for-TV movie about Moore aired on network television. Former “Bewitched” star Elizabeth Montgomery played Moore in “Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Story.”
Her husband, the Rev. Dwight Moore, filed for divorce in December of 1990. He eventually remarried and moved to Virginia. He died of natural causes in 2013.
“She’s guilty I think, you know, I think she did it,” one man said during the hoopla surrounding the trial 29 years ago. “I mean that’s just my opinion, but I think she did it.
Carlette Parker is on death row for a brutal robbery and murder in North Carolina. According to court documents Carlette Parker was suppose to be taking care of an elderly woman but somewhere along the way she decided to take everything the woman had. Carlette Parker would gain access to the woman’s bank account and proceeded to drain it and in order to cover up the fraud she drowned the elderly woman in a bathtub. Carlette Parker would be arrested, convicted and sent to death row in North Carolina
Carlette Parker 2020 Information
CARLETTE PARKER
Offender Number:
0311386
Inmate Status:
ACTIVE
Probation/Parole/Post Release Status:
INACTIVE
Gender:
FEMALE
Race:
BLACK
Ethnic Group:
AFRICAN
Birth Date:
06/12/1963
Age:
56
Current Location:
NCCI WOMEN
Carlette Parker Other News
The State’s evidence at trial tended to show the following facts: On 12 May 1998, Carlette Parker kidnapped and drowned Alice Covington (the victim). At the time of her death, the victim was eighty-six years old, stood five feet one and one-half inches tall, and weighed eighty-eight pounds. Defendant was thirty-four years old and weighed approximately 230 to 240 pounds. From December 1996 to March 1997, defendant served as the home health-care worker for Charles Holtz, a close friend of the victim. The victim and Holtz were both residents at Springmoor Retirement Village in Raleigh.
On the morning of 12 May 1998, Carlette Parker and the victim saw each other at a Kroger parking lot on Creedmoor Road in Raleigh. Between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m., three witnesses saw the victim and a heavyset black woman struggling on Strickland Road. According to the witnesses, when the heavyset woman attacked the victim, the victim tried to get away by hitting the heavyset woman over the head with her purse.
Later that afternoon, against the victim’s will, defendant drove the victim to the First Union Market Street teller window in Smithfield and withdrew $2,500 from the victim’s account. A heavyset black woman gave the teller a withdrawal slip and the victim’s driver’s license. The teller looked into the car and saw the victim in the passenger seat, leaning against the car door. The victim was not moving and appeared to be napping.
Carlette Parker drove the victim back to the Kroger parking lot; moved her to defendant’s Ford Fiesta hatchback; and drove to defendant’s trailer in Angier, North Carolina, where the victim drowned in the bathtub. Defendant undressed the victim’s body, washed the victim’s clothes, redressed the body, and put the body in the hatchback of defendant’s car. Defendant then left in a separate vehicle and drove to a family party. After leaving the party, defendant drove around for several hours.
The next morning, Carlette Parker returned to the Kroger parking lot and transferred the victim’s body to the front seat of the victim’s car. Defendant drove the victim’s car around Raleigh, Hillsborough, and Burlington for several hours. Finally, defendant left the victim’s body in the car on a dirt road in Morrisville. Defendant walked to Davis Drive and caught a ride to a gas station. Defendant took a cab back to her car, went home, and drank wine coolers.
On 14 May 1998, a passerby discovered the victim’s body and notified the police. The victim’s body was lying across the front seat, with her head propped against the driver’s side door, her chest under the steering wheel, and her feet on the right front floorboard. Investigators found substantial bruising around the victim’s face, neck, hands, upper part of both arms, upper left back and shoulder area, and left wrist. The victim also had a laceration on her left wrist and lower left leg. The victim was dressed in blue slacks and a light pink nylon jacket. There was reddish discoloration on the lower portion of the jacket. Testing conducted prior to trial revealed that a pepper-spray container found in defendant’s car emitted spray that left a pink stain on a clean sheet.
During their investigation, police conducted a series of interviews with Parker. During the first interview, defendant stated she saw the victim on 12 May 1998 in a Kroger parking lot between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. Defendant said she and the victim drove to a car wash and then to the victim’s home. Defendant said she remained at the victim’s home for two to three minutes and then left. After defendant made this statement, SBI Agent M.B. East told defendant that the victim had been found dead in her car in Morrisville. Defendant, remaining calm and emotionless, responded, “Oh really?” At the conclusion of the interview, defendant denied killing the victim or knowing who did. Defendant also denied having recently been to Morrisville or any banks in Smithfield.
During the second interview, Carlette Parker’s demeanor changed. At first, defendant was conversational. Agent East told defendant that witnesses saw her in an altercation with the victim on Strickland Road. East also showed defendant a copy of the $2,500 check drawn from the victim’s account and told defendant that a teller described the person who accompanied the victim when the money was withdrawn. Defendant then became visibly nervous. Her leg shook, and her knee bounced up and down. Agent East again asked defendant if she knew who murdered the victim. The defendant responded, “Possibly.” However, Carlette Parker denied assaulting or accidentally killing the victim. While taking defendant home after the interview, Agent East heard defendant say, “I’m going to lose my job,” and “I won’t be able to take care of old people anymore.”
On 16 May 1998, police conducted two more interviews with defendant. Defendant told Agent East and Raleigh Police Detective K.W. Andrews that she had a story and it would be kind of “far-fetched” but that she wanted to come clean and say what had transpired. As in her first interview, defendant said she saw the victim at the Kroger parking lot, and they went to a car wash. At this second interview, defendant claimed she ran into the victim between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m. as opposed to between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. Defendant’s story also became ambiguous about whether she and the victim rode together to the victim’s home or took separate cars. Defendant said that after going to the victim’s house, she and the victim returned to the Kroger parking lot; got into defendant’s car; and drove to the First Union in Smithfield, where defendant cashed a check for $2,500. Defendant claimed the victim gave her this money to help defendant with her doll business. Defendant claimed she never stopped on Strickland Road with the victim.
According to Parker, she then drove the victim to defendant’s trailer in Angier. The victim sat on the commode in a bathroom, and defendant filled the bathtub with water. Defendant said she left the bathroom, and when she returned, the victim’s head had fallen into the water. Defendant sat the victim up and left the room again. When she returned, the victim’s head was submerged. Defendant said she grabbed the victim by the hair, pulled her out of the water, and tore the victim’s shirt. Defendant slapped the victim across the face a couple of times, but the victim did not respond. Defendant vaguely described how the victim’s head then slammed into the floor. Defendant carried the victim into the living room and placed her on the floor. Defendant removed the victim’s clothes, washed and dried them, and redressed the victim without the torn shirt.
Parker said the victim was unresponsive but the victim’s hand may have twitched. Defendant admitted she did not perform CPR or call 911 despite being trained as a health-care professional who was certified in CPR. Defendant put the body in the hatchback of her Ford Fiesta and drove her other automobile, a truck, to a party in Durham. Defendant left the party and drove around for several hours before returning home. Once at home, defendant got into her Ford Fiesta and drove to a hotel where her husband was staying on Highway 70 East. The victim’s body was still in the hatchback. Defendant did not tell her husband what had happened that day.
Defendant said she returned to the Kroger parking lot the next morning around 6:45 a.m. and moved the victim’s body to the front seat of the victim’s car. Defendant said the victim’s body smelled, so she put two pillows on it. Defendant drove around Hillsborough and Burlington, ending up on a dirt road in Morrisville around 1:00 or 2:00 p.m. According to defendant, the car got stuck in the road, and defendant left the victim’s body in the car with the engine running. Defendant caught a ride to a gas station, called a cab, returned home, and drank wine coolers.
In an additional interview, Carlette admitted throwing the victim’s purse out of the car window near Falls Lake. Defendant said she was afraid her fingerprints might be lifted from the purse and she might be implicated in the victim’s death. Further, although she had previously denied it, defendant admitted she had a confrontation with the victim on Strickland Road. Defendant initially said she merely stopped the car to adjust the victim’s seat, get gas, and massage a cramp from the victim’s leg. At this point in the interview, however, defendant paused to consult with her attorney. Defendant then admitted she forcefully took the victim to the bank and the trailer against the victim’s will. Defendant also conceded that although the victim had previously voluntarily written the withdrawal slip defendant used in Smithfield, the victim changed her mind about giving defendant the money before defendant forcefully took her to Smithfield to withdraw it. Defendant stated she and the victim did have a disagreement on Strickland Road and the victim hit defendant with her purse. Defendant admitted she then grabbed the victim by her shirt and threw her into the car. Defendant also said the victim’s shirt was actually torn when defendant forced the victim back into the car.
Dr. James Ronald Edwards, who was accepted at trial as an expert in pathology, performed the first autopsy on the victim on 15 May 1998. The autopsy revealed no obvious cause of death. There was no visible sign of an acute heart attack, stroke, brain hemorrhage, blood clot, aneurysm, or external strangulation. Dr. Edwards noticed indications of external trauma, including bruises on the victim’s right and left wrists, left shoulder, face, and left side of the neck. Dr. Edwards also noted the lungs were congested and edematous. He testified this fluid in the lungs could be caused by drowning. Dr. Edwards concluded that a natural cause of death was not documented, but that “some external trauma appears to be present” and that “additional history may be helpful in coming to a final conclusion.”
Dr. Robert L. Thompson, who was accepted at trial as an expert in forensic pathology, performed a second autopsy. This autopsy revealed no obvious fatal injury and no evidence of strangulation or disease in the victim. Moreover, Dr. Thompson specifically testified the victim did not die of a heart attack. Dr. Thompson further testified that two small, round, sightly reddened areas on the surface of the victim’s skin could have been caused by a stun gun found in defendant’s possession. In an amendment to the death certificate, Dr. Thompson listed the immediate cause of death as “drowning” and the manner of death as “homicide.”
Dr. Wells Edmunson, who was accepted at trial as an expert in internal medicine, was the victim’s doctor for twelve years. Dr. Edmunson testified that the victim’s overall physical and mental health was excellent. Dr. Edmunson stated that the victim was an especially vibrant person for her age and that her blood pressure, respiration, and cholesterol readings were normal at her most recent physical.
Carlette Parker presented evidence from Dr. Page Hudson that prior EKGs performed on the victim indicated some heart abnormalities. Dr. Hudson opined the victim could have died from a cardiac arrhythmia. Dr. Hudson also stated, however, that cardiac arrhythmia could result from stress and that a stun gun would produce such stress in a person. Dr. Hudson further testified that he had not read defendant’s statement to police and that reading this statement would be helpful. Finally, Dr. Hudson testified, “[T]here’s an excellent chance that [the victim] drowned.”
The State also introduced evidence concerning defendant’s criminal history and prior conduct at area banks. On 7 August 1995, defendant pled guilty to sixteen felony counts of obtaining property by false pretenses from eighty-five-year-old Catherine Stevenson, for whom defendant provided care. J.C. Holder, who worked in May 1995 as an investigator with NationsBank, testified that he had investigated unusual activity in Stevenson’s account. Holder went to Stevenson’s home and asked her to come talk to a customer representative at the bank about the rapid depletion of her account. Defendant was with Stevenson at the time and drove Stevenson to the bank. When she arrived at the bank, Stevenson appeared angry and upset with defendant and did not want defendant “to have anything to do with her.” At the bank, defendant admitted forging unauthorized withdrawals. Defendant said she made the unauthorized withdrawals when Stevenson was in the car. The amount missing from Stevenson’s account was around $44,000.
After defendant pled guilty to those charges, the trial court suspended defendant’s sentence and put her on probation for forty-eight months. The trial court also ordered defendant to pay restitution in monthly payments of $920.43. By 1 April 1998, defendant was over $4,000 behind in restitution payments. Cathy Clayton, the chief probation and parole officer in Johnston County, testified defendant expressed concern about how she would make her payments.
On 30 April 1998, Carlette cashed a $2,500 check signed by Alice Covington and drawn on her Merrill Lynch cash management account. The transaction occurred at the drive-through window of the Crabtree First Union. Defendant was alone when she cashed the check. Later that day, defendant brought three money orders to the probation office. The three orders totaled $2,000 and had been purchased at the Crabtree Post Office. This post office is within sight of the Crabtree First Union. When asked where she got so much money, defendant responded that she had been making a lot of dolls.
On 8 May 1998, defendant attempted to cash a $600.00 check at the drive-through window at a First Union in Dunn, North Carolina. The teller informed defendant that she could not cash the check because defendant’s account showed a low balance. Defendant began yelling, honking her horn, and causing a disturbance. The teller eventually had to walk away from the window. Defendant came inside the bank and was again advised the check could not be cashed. Defendant began cursing and screaming. The police were called, but defendant left before they arrived.
As a preliminary matter, we note that North Carolina’s Rules of Appellate Procedure require that each party’s statement of the facts be “supported by references to pages in the transcript of proceedings, the record on appeal, or exhibits, as the case may be.” N.C. R.App. P. 28(b)(4); see also N.C. R.App. P. 28(c). In the present case, both the State and defendant failed to meet this requirement. The parties’ statements of the facts at times go on for several pages before providing a transcript reference to several different volumes or to numerous consecutive pages in a volume. While we hold neither party in default in the present appeal, we encourage future parties to provide specific and continual transcript references.
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Carlette Parker 2021
Carlette Parker is currently incarcerated at the NCCI the home of North Carolina Death Row for Women
Why Is Carlette Parker On Death Row
Carlette Parker was convcited of the robbery and murder of an elderly woman
Donna Roberts is on death row in Ohio for the contract killing of her husband. According to court documents Donna Roberts hired an inmate to murder her husband and when he was released from prison he did just that. Nate Jackson who actually pulled the trigger told police that Donna Roberts had nothing to do with the murder however phone calls from jail as well as letters showed her doing just what the prosecution said she did. Donna Roberts would be convicted and sentenced to death and Nate Jackson would receive the same
The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence handed down to a woman convicted of plotting to murder her husband in Howland in2001.
The court affirmed the sentence of Donna Roberts, who along with her lover Nathaniel Jackson, were convicted of killing Robert Fingerhut in Howland Township.
Both were sentenced to death for scheming to kill Fingerhut so Roberts could collect more than $500,000 in life insurance proceeds.
Roberts is scheduled to be executed on August 12, 2020.
According to court records, Roberts was having an affair with Jackson before he was sent to prison for a separate offense.
Investigators say the two communicated while Jackson was in prison.
When Jackson was released on December 9, 2001, Roberts was waiting to pick him up.
wo days later, Robert Fingerhut was found dead on the kitchen floor of his home. He had been shot several times.
In addition to letters and phone records gathered as evidence, investigators say Roberts bought Jackson a mask and gloves to wear while committing the crime, even allowing him into the home where the murder occurred.
Roberts was convicted of aggravated murder with death penalty specifications, aggravated robbery, and aggravated burglary
In Tuesday’s ruling, the justices rejected Roberts’ claim that her sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
This is the third time Roberts has appealed her death sentence to the Ohio Supreme Court.
The Court first sent Robert’s case back to the trial court after learning that the judge had allowed the prosecutor’s office to participate in drafting the judge’s sentencing opinion.
The court returned Roberts’ case to the trial court for a second time in 2013 after concluding that the trial court hadn’t considered potentially mitigating information Roberts gave at her first re-sentencing hearing.
The Supreme Court ordered the trial court to consider the entire record when deciding again whether the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt.
A new judge conducted the re-sentencing because the judge who originally heard Roberts’ case had died.
The new judge determined that death was the appropriate penalty in the case.
In her appeal, Roberts maintained that the new judge couldn’t properly consider all the evidence in the case because he wasn’t present for any of her trial and didn’t hear her statement firsthand.
In its latest ruling, the Supreme Court found that the trial court judge’s decision was proper because he reviewed a written transcript of the case.
The Ohio Supreme Court has already refused to reconsider its earlier decision to uphold Nathaniel Jackson’s sentence, which is scheduled to be carried out on July 15, 2020.
Donna Roberts More News
The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence handed down to a woman convicted of plotting to murder her husband in Howland in2001.
The court affirmed the sentence of Donna Roberts, who along with her lover Nathaniel Jackson, were convicted of killing Robert Fingerhut in Howland Township.
Both were sentenced to death for scheming to kill Fingerhut so Roberts could collect more than $500,000 in life insurance proceeds.
Roberts is scheduled to be executed on August 12, 2020.
According to court records, Roberts was having an affair with Jackson before he was sent to prison for a separate offense.
Investigators say the two communicated while Jackson was in prison.
When Jackson was released on December 9, 2001, Roberts was waiting to pick him up.
Two days later, Robert Fingerhut was found dead on the kitchen floor of his home. He had been shot several times.
In addition to letters and phone records gathered as evidence, investigators say Roberts bought Jackson a mask and gloves to wear while committing the crime, even allowing him into the home where the murder occurred.
Roberts was convicted of aggravated murder with death penalty specifications, aggravated robbery, and aggravated burglary
In Tuesday’s ruling, the justices rejected Roberts’ claim that her sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
This is the third time Roberts has appealed her death sentence to the Ohio Supreme Court.
The Court first sent Robert’s case back to the trial court after learning that the judge had allowed the prosecutor’s office to participate in drafting the judge’s sentencing opinion.
The court returned Roberts’ case to the trial court for a second time in 2013 after concluding that the trial court hadn’t considered potentially mitigating information Roberts gave at her first re-sentencing hearing.
The Supreme Court ordered the trial court to consider the entire record when deciding again whether the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt.
A new judge conducted the re-sentencing because the judge who originally heard Roberts’ case had died.
The new judge determined that death was the appropriate penalty in the case.
In her appeal, Roberts maintained that the new judge couldn’t properly consider all the evidence in the case because he wasn’t present for any of her trial and didn’t hear her statement firsthand.
In its latest ruling, the Supreme Court found that the trial court judge’s decision was proper because he reviewed a written transcript of the case.
The Ohio Supreme Court has already refused to reconsider its earlier decision to uphold Nathaniel Jackson’s sentence, which is scheduled to be carried out on July 15, 2020.
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