Bodies of Evidence: The True Story of Judias Buenoano Florida's Serial Murderess - Hardcover

Anderson, Chris; McGehee, Sharon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0818405422 ISBN 13: 9780818405426

Publisher: Lyle Stuart, 1991

Synopsis

Profiles the life and crimes of convicted serial killer Judias Buenoano, the Florida woman on death row for the murders of several men, and the detective who brought her to justice

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Pedestrian account of the investigation and trial of an unusually monstrous parricide. On March 31, 1984, Judias Buenoano was convicted of first- degree murder, and is now on Florida's death row. Buenoano poisoned two husbands and her son; when arsenic left the boy only partially paralyzed, she took him fishing and shoved him (he wore steel leg braces weighing 50 pounds) out of the boat. She then blew up her boyfriend in his car--the crime that led to her arrest. Shortly before killing her victims, she took out multiple life-insurance policies on them, and for 12 years evaded discovery by moving to new communities. Anderson and McGehee, an N.Y.C. husband-and-wife writing-producing team, re-create the story through a chronicle- -assembled through interviews and court and medical records--of the work of Ted Chamberlain, the Pensacola detective who made the case against the killer. Buenoano is an interesting murderess, and the authors vividly re-create the milieu in which she operated. Their invented dialogue, however, is wooden when supplying narrative detail (``The victim, a John Gentry, white male, thirty-six, had already been taken to Sacred Heart Hospital...'') and clich‚d when used to convey personality (``That's mighty white of you buddy''). Through this clumsy treatment, Chamberlain comes off as a brooding Neanderthal. Since Buenoano was an inept killer and making the case against her was a routine assembling of evidence, the real interest in her story is psychological: One wishes that instead of padding their book with court testimony (more than 100 pages), the authors had probed deeper into Buenoano's background. Buenoano's madness harks back to Victorian England, when coldblooded and elaborately schemed murders of families by a spouse were more common; even contrasted to those, the crime here is particularly heinous. A book that students of murder will want to have despite its flaws. (Eight pages of photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

The case or, more accurately, cases against Judias Buenoano, aka Judy Ann Goodyear and Ann Lou Welty, began in 1983, with a failed attempt to blow up the car of her then-boyfriend, John Gentry, in Pensacola, Fla. Investigation revealed that she had insured his life for $500,000 and that he was unaware of the policy. Further probing brought to light the suspicious deaths in previous years of the father of her first son, of that son, of her husband and of another boyfriend. In two of the cases, arsenic was found in the exhumed remains. Tried for the drowning of her son, Judias was found guilty and sentenced to life; her second trial, for the attempted murder of Gentry, brought another guilty verdict and a 12-year sentence; in her third trial, for the fatal poisoning of her husband, she was again found guilty and sentenced to death. She has been on Florida's death row for six years. The husband-and-wife team of Anderson and McGehee ( Raging Bull II ) vividly render the life of a sociopath in this horrifying story. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Lyle Stuart
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0818405422
• ISBN 13: 9780818405426
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 319