Select by gender or name

Judy Buenoano’s Childhood

Judy Buenoano, originally named Judias Ann Welty, was born in Texas on April 4th, 1943. She had a difficult childhood.

When Judy was just two years old, her mother passed away from tuberculosis, leaving her and her baby brother, Robert, to be raised by their grandparents.

Her two older siblings were placed in foster care. Judy’s father eventually remarried and took her and Robert to live with him and his new wife.

Judy claimed that both her father and stepmother mistreated her. She was starved and forced to work long hours around the house.

At the age of fourteen, Judy could no longer take it. She attacked her parents and her half-brothers, which led to her being sentenced to two months in a juvenile detention center.

After serving her sentence, she was given a choice to return to her family or go to a reform school, and she chose the latter.

Judy attended Foothills High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and graduated in 1959. She completely cut ties with her family, including her younger brother Robert.

Judy Buenoano’s Murder Spree

A year after graduating high school, Judy started a job as a nurse under the fake name Anna Schultz.

During this time, she had her first son, Michael Schultz, by an unknown man. On January 21st, 1962, Judy married Air Force officer James Goodyear Sr. The couple had a son named James Jr. in 1966.

To celebrate the birth of their first son, James Sr. adopted Michael, giving him his last name. A year later, they had a daughter named Kimberly, and the family moved to Florida.

James Goodyear Sr. served in Vietnam and returned home in June 1971. However, just three months after returning, he fell ill and was admitted to a U.S. Naval Hospital in Orlando, Florida.

He passed away on September 15th, 1971, due to an ailment that the medical personnel was unable to diagnose.

Five days after his death, Judy cashed in on three life insurance policies. Before the year ended, Judy’s home caught fire, allowing her to collect close to $100,000 in fire insurance.

By 1973, Judy was living with a new man named Bobby Joe Morris. Michael, her son, was having trouble adjusting to the new living situation and began acting out in school.

Judy sent Michael to a residential foster care facility and continued her life with Bobby and her other children.

In 1977, Bobby moved the family to Colorado, and Michael rejoined them. Before leaving Florida, their home mysteriously caught fire again, and Judy collected more insurance money.

Shortly after moving to Colorado, Bobby Joe Morris fell ill and was hospitalized, but doctors could not find anything wrong with him. Days after being discharged, he collapsed and died on January 21st, 1978. His cause of death was ruled to be cardiac arrest.

In May 1978, Judy changed her and her kid’s last names to Buenoano.

In 1979, Judy sent Michael to join the army, but he began to lose feeling in his limbs and was diagnosed with arsenic poisoning.

He was put in leg braces and discharged from the military. On March 13th, 1980, Judy took Michael and her other son, James Jr., canoeing.

The canoe overturned, and while Judy and James Jr. survived, 19-year-old Michael drowned due to the weight of his metal braces. Investigators believed Judy’s account of the incident, and she collected $20,000 from Michael’s military life insurance.

With the money from Michael’s insurance, Judy opened a beauty salon and started a relationship with John Gentry. Judy convinced John they were successful, and they took out life insurance policies on each other for $500,000.

John began taking vitamins recommended by Judy and soon fell ill. Judy suggested he double the dosage.

On June 25th, 1983, John went out to buy some champagne because Judy claimed she was pregnant.

When John went to his car, it exploded as soon as he started it. Miraculously, he survived and was hospitalized.

Investigation and Arrest

While recovering, John answered questions from detectives, who began investigating Judy. They discovered she was calling herself a doctor but had no medical background. Also, she was not pregnant and was telling people John had a terminal illness.

She had also booked a getaway for her and her kids, but not John, indicating she did not expect him to be around.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms got involved and traced two sticks of dynamite attached to John’s car, back to a friend of Judy’s in Alabama.

When police searched Judy’s home, they found vitamin capsules containing arsenic, as well as materials matching the bomb found in John’s car.

In her nail salon, they discovered formaldehyde, which Judy used in the vitamin capsules. She was taken into custody and accused of trying to kill John.

On January 11th, 1984, Judy was charged with the murder of her son, Michael. In February, authorities exhumed the body of Bobby Joe Morris and found arsenic in his system. In March 1984, they exhumed James Goodyear’s body and also found arsenic.

Legal Proceedings

Judy faced separate trials for the murder of her first husband and son and the attempted murder of John.

She was convicted of trying to kill John and was sentenced to 12 years.

She received a life sentence without parole for Michael’s murder on June 6th, 1984.

She was found guilty of murdering James Goodyear on November 26th, 1985. After ten hours of deliberation, the jury sentenced her to death by electrocution.

Execution

As the years passed, Judy maintained her innocence. She claimed she was the victim of”defamation, assassination of character… to make me into a vile monster.”

However, her words didn’t change public perception or get her off death row.

On March 29th, 1998, Judy’s final appeal was rejected.

Governor Lawton Chiles signed her death warrant, and she was transferred from Broward County Correctional Center to the State Penitentiary at Starke, which is known today as Florida State Prison.

Judy was placed in a 12×7 foot cell close to the death chamber.

She had a busy day as she visited with her two adult children, who believed in her innocence. She also met with other relatives, her lawyers, and spiritual advisors.

One cousin claimed Judy “had no fear at all, she’s mostly afraid of leaving her children and how upset they were.”

At some point, she was served a final meal of broccoli, asparagus, strawberries, and tea.

On March 30th, she woke up at 4:30 am, showered, and dressed. After that, a correctional officer shaved her head to ensure her hair would not catch fire during the execution.

At 7:02 am, she was removed from her cell and taken to the execution chamber. She was strapped into the chair and had a headpiece with electrodes placed on her head.

With everything in place, the Warden asked if she had any last words. With her eyes closed, she said, “No, Sir.”

A mask was placed over her face, and at 7:08 am, the electrocution started. She was hit with 2300 volts of electricity for 8 seconds, followed by 1,000 volts for 22 seconds, and finally back to 2,300 volts for another 8 seconds.

She was pronounced dead at 7:13 am.