Serial Granny - Burlington, North Carolina

Summary

Small Town Murder – "Serial Granny – Burlington, North Carolina"

Podcast: Small Town Murder
Hosts: James Pietragallo, Jimmie Whisman
Episode Date: June 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this darkly comedic true crime episode, James and Jimmie unravel the twisted, shocking saga of Blanche Taylor Moore, a grandmotherly church lady with an astonishing trail of death behind her. Set in Burlington, North Carolina, the story traces a series of mysterious illnesses and deaths that, for years, seemed like unrelated tragedies—until one survivor and determined detectives uncovered a pattern. With their signature blend of in-depth research, irreverent humor, and empathy for victims, the hosts dig into Blanche’s string of poisoned partners, family, and acquaintances, ultimately revealing a classic case of the "Black Widow" killer lurking in plain sight.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Burlington, NC

• History and Color: Detailed breakdown of Burlington's origins as a railroad repair town, its quirky naming contest (named “Burlington” because the name was spotted on a passing train), and demographic info.
  • “They changed it to Burlington based on that because that's a good reason to name a town” (12:14)
  • Population: ~56,000, diverse demographics, depressed income, affordable homes, and a high crime rate.
• Host Tone: Playful roasting of small-town culture—cheap real estate, local festivals, and reviews of the Carousel Festival ("the heyday of carousels was 1910” —20:10).

2. Introducing Blanche Taylor Moore ("Calamity Blanche")

• Early Life & Trauma: Blanche, born 1933 as Blanche Kiser, endured a difficult childhood with an abusive, hypocritical preacher father:
  • “Basically, if he's not standing in the pulpit, ...he's going to be drinking, gambling, or fucking a strange woman.”—24:22 (James)
  • Blanche later alleges she was prostituted by her father to pay gambling debts—though her siblings neither confirm nor deny (26:57).
• Social Dynamics: Blanche was known for abrupt shifts from quoting scripture to graphic sexual talk, adding complexity to her character and reliability as a narrator (33:17).

3. The Trail of Marriages, Affairs, and Death

• First Marriage: Weds James Napoleon Taylor (1952)—a decent, hardworking man.
  • Children: Vanessa and Cindy.
  • Blanche took a job at Kroger, rising to head cashier—the highest rank for women at that time (37:12).
• Affairs: Begins long-term affair with manager Raymond Reed while still married (38:01); Reed eventually divorces his wife.
• First Suspicious Deaths:
  • Blanche’s abusive father dies suddenly in 1966 (heart attack, suspicious blue face before death—42:45).
  • Taylor’s mother dies on Thanksgiving, 1970, at age 83 (laughed over by the hosts for the timing and lack of suspicion—43:33).

4. Suspicious Patterns Emerge

• James Taylor’s Death (1973): Blanche’s first husband dies at 45, officially deemed heart failure after a bad flu (46:35).
• “She’s had some tragedy happen. Kind of follow her around the last few years.” —47:00
• Raymond Reed’s Long, Agonizing Illness and Death (1986):
  • Multiple hospitalizations for stomach and nerve symptoms, misdiagnosed repeatedly until his death.
  • Blanche present throughout, bringing home-cooked meals and convincing Reed to will her a share of his estate. (85:16)
  • Symptoms: nausea, paralysis, brain and liver damage, skin splitting, edema—classic signs of arsenic poisoning (73:44; 87:36).
• Subsequent Romance: Moves on to relationship with Reverend Dwight Moore, who also falls violently ill after their wedding, ultimately surviving immense doses of arsenic (100:05).

5. The Investigation Unravels

• Turning Point: Dwight Moore survives and doctors discover arsenic poisoning—“20 times the lethal dose... the most ever in a living patient in this hospital” (103:38).
• Police Dig Deeper:
  • Bodies of Blanche’s two husbands, her father, and mother-in-law exhumed—multiple victims found with massive quantities of arsenic, revealing a decades-long poisoning spree (107:52).
• Evidence Gathering: Arsenic levels timeline reconstructed from hair samples, establishing chronic poisoning (110:44).
• Arsenic Sourcing: Hardware store ant poison, “Anti Ant,” is traced—Blanche is linked through witness testimony and purchase history (123:27).

6. Confrontation and Prosecution

• Blanche’s Denials: In police interviews, Blanche adamantly denies bringing food to victims, buying or recommending arsenic, or involvement in wills—contradicted by numerous witnesses (126:56).
• Defense Strategies:
  • Attempted to create doubt with a forged confession letter from a supposed secret admirer, “Garvin Thomas”—easily debunked as Blanche’s handwriting (139:16).
• Circumstantial Evidence and Gender Bias: The community’s disbelief—“She’s either the sweetest woman who ever lived or she’s a killer” (137:16).
• Trial:
  • The prosecution is allowed to present prior poisonings as a “signature,” emphasizing a clear pattern (157:11).
  • Blanche testifies, denying everything despite overwhelming evidence (163:03).
• Verdict: Guilty of first-degree murder; sentenced to death by lethal injection—“Come on, everybody, let’s kill grandma!” (168:22).

7. Aftermath and Cultural Impact

• Endless Appeals: Blanche remains on death row into her 90s, surviving cancer, and having become a notorious figure in true crime circles (177:24; 181:57).
• Media Frenzy: The case inspires books and a made-for-TV movie starring Elizabeth Montgomery as Blanche. The case remains North Carolina’s most infamous “Black Widow” poisonings, echoed on shows like Snapped and Deadly Women (170:13).
• Reflections: Discussion on gender, true crime perceptions, and the unique horror of Blanche’s methodical, low-motive, “granny poisonings.”
  • “Find me another murder case where someone tortures someone for 10 months.” —167:32
  • “She got next to nothing in benefit of this.” —184:14

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Small Town Reviews:
  “You bring your shit when you move from place to place… This is a review of the town.” —14:04 (James)
• On Blanche’s Double Life:
  “She’d go from quoting scripture to talking extremely graphically about sex. Like, graphic, graphic.” —33:15 (James)
• On Blanche’s Denials:
  “You never carried Raymond no food?” “No, sir, I didn’t.” —127:30 (Interrogation excerpt)
• On the Jury’s Perception:
  “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.” —158:03 (Prosecution opening)
• On the Motive:
  “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.” —131:53 (Reverend Dwight Moore)
• On Death Penalty for Elderly:
  “If Ted Bundy was 93, we wouldn’t take his rickety ass and sit him in a chair... just hang out, Ted.” —182:23 (James)

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Important Timestamps

• Blanche’s Childhood & Parental Abuse: 23:50 – 27:23, 32:20 – 33:17
• Town Overview & Demographics: 06:21 – 17:06
• Pattern of Suspicious Deaths: 42:45 – 47:00, 85:16 – 91:33
• Raymond Reed’s Prolonged Illness: 69:11 – 91:33
• Arsenic Discovery in Dwight Moore: 103:38 – 106:31
• Police Interrogation of Blanche: 126:56 – 128:40
• Blanche’s Forged Confession Scheme: 138:48 – 139:16
• Trial Highlights: 157:11 – 168:22
• Cultural Legacy & Media Portrayals: 170:13 – 175:50, 183:00 onward

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Podcast Tone & Style

• Dark Humor: Jokes about small town quirks, criminal incompetence, and even the horror of the poisoning with irreverent banter.
• Empathic Boundaries: Emphasize making fun of murderers and institutions—never victims.
  • “We are assholes, but we’re not scumbags” —05:17 (James)
• Effortful Research: Deep dive into court records, medical findings, and local history; often pausing to fact-check and explain concepts for listeners.

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Final Thoughts

“Serial Granny” is a quintessential Small Town Murder episode—part historical deep dive, part true crime expose, all wrapped in candor and gallows humor. James and Jimmie trace Blanche Taylor Moore’s unlikely path to infamy as an archetypal Black Widow killer, leaving the audience equal parts horrified, informed, and entertained.

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Next episode tease: The saga continues with new true crime tales and another blend of tragedy, history, and sharp-witted commentary.

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For more:
Patreon: patreon.com/crimeinsports
Tour dates and merch: ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com

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Note: Timestamps refer to host discussion and key narrative segments, skipping all ads, intros, and outros.

Transcript

[James Petregallo]

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[Jimmy Whisman]

Yay.

[James Petregallo]

Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petregallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm Jimmy Whisman.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another great crazy. This is a crazy ass episode. Let me tell you. 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 shutupandgivemerder.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 Mil Milwaukee at the Pabst. 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. 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 too. We love the crowd and we like 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 is San Jose, Sacramento. Get those tickets. And then November 13th and 14th, Tarrytown in Boston. And Tarrytown 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 in Miami there, Yahweh, Ben Yahweh and all the murders because one of the guys who killed a lot of people happened to be an NFL player, a member. Well, 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. One Crime in sports, one Small town murder. And you get them all. Everybody.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You get it all.

[James Petregallo]

You get it all. This week, what we're gonna talk about for crime and sports, it's the craziest hostage 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 in there. They resolve in wild ways. And then for small town murder, looks like right now, as the poll stands, it's probably going to be the crash and all the Mackenzie Scurrilla stuff. But still time to get your vote in for Cory Richens, if that's what you want. So there is that. And then the week after it'll be Cory Richards. So it doesn't matter. So there you go, everybody. There is Patreon. Patreon.com crime Crime in sports is where you get all of that and you get every show we put out. Crime and Sports, you stupid opinion, Small town murder. All ad 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 even though he would love to get it correct. Trust me on that. That said, 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. We try to get it as accurate as humanly possible here. We like to say we try to do better research than Dateline, but also be funny. That's what we're trying to do here. So you might go, that's a tight walk. That's a tightrope walk there. How do you do that? Well, very easily, I think. Actually, there's plenty to make fun of. First of all, you 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why is that, James?

[James Petregallo]

Because we're assholes, but we're not scumbags. See how 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 lets a murderer kill more and more. We should make fun of those guys for being terrible at their job. And then we make fun of murderers because fuck them. What are we gonna do? Yeah, we have 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. I don't know why you're here, first of all. But second of all, no complaining later. I don't know what to tell you. Check it out. Yeah, check it out. I think 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, clear the lungs and let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let us go. We are going to North Carolina this week. Back to North Carolina? That's right. We're going to Burlington, North Carolina. Here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Who knew?

[James Petregallo]

And in honor of North Carolina, here, I grabbed some cheer wine for the thing because that's where I got hooked on the stuff. It's good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What is Burlington? There's another one up in. What, Vermont.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah, there's plenty of Burlingtons. Yeah. And there's also a coat Factory, I believe.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure, sure. Yeah. Well, I don't think they call it coat factory anymore.

[James Petregallo]

They can call it whatever they want.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's still. Yeah, it's still a place where you get somebody else's underwear packed in your brand new box.

[James Petregallo]

I don't care what they call it, it's always a coat factory. You can't ever outlive that. You can't outrun the name coat factory. Yeah, they put a heart in the logo. They care. Nobody loves this. No. And they don't love you for sure. If they did, they would at least make sure the underwear didn't have somebody else's in it. So that's north central North Carolina. It's about an hour to Raleigh. 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 Dad. I remember that. That was a wild one. This is in two different counties. It is Alamance county and Gulford county. Area code 336 and 743. Hell yeah. And the motto here, okay, they have a motto. Belong in Burlington, you must. You come here. You belong because you're here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Or they're telling you, yeah, you belong here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

By yesterday's season's codes, you belong here.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is it. Is it close to the coast?

[James Petregallo]

No, no. Middle of the state. North Central North.

[Jimmy Whisman]

How about that?

[James Petregallo]

Up 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So they would take the trains to deliver the new track? Is that what it is?

[James Petregallo]

They would.

[Jimmy Whisman]

How do you do that?

[James Petregallo]

I have no idea. Yeah, how the hell would I know that?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm so interested in that now.

[James Petregallo]

I'm going to.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm going to read a book.

[James Petregallo]

No, you're not. Who the fuck are you kidding? You won't read a book for this. No, you'll read a book for that. So not long after this, the railroad realized they needed repair shops. Now 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 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, N.C. which has a ring to it. That's where everybody wants to retire. It's my dream. Yeah, you know, you just sit on the beach in 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 vill without anything like churches or schools or anything like that. It was just where a place where a bunch of dirty guys lived covered in grease so they could fix fixing train tracks, 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 are now. It's not a company, nor a shop, nor a shop. So in 1880s they don't even have any shops. They own ships. So in February 1887, a contest was held which always gets the best. That's how expansion like football teams get their names. You shouldn't name a whole town after that 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 named Burlington. Nobody started. The town named Burlington has nothing to do with this place.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Those Burlington, those trains still exist.

[James Petregallo]

There was just. I've seen them people's old underwear and shitty, you know, and $86 coats, $86 parkas that are normally $199. That's what they saw going by from three years ago. From three years ago? Well, yeah, obviously there was. I was in a Burlington like five years ago and they had tons of members only jackets.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really? Yeah, they did have a resurgence there for a minute.

[James Petregallo]

They had like. I felt like I was a member. 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 on.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not white.

[James Petregallo]

What kind of a. This is like Jesse Gemstone. Wouldn't even wear that. This is insane. Who the fuck would wear this?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not white.

[James Petregallo]

White.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jamie, don't get a white one.

[James Petregallo]

White leather Members Only jacket. It's exactly the members Only jacket.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's fascinating.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, but white. It was white. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I just got a white.

[James Petregallo]

I'd like to wear this for two days.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Just got a white puffy one. I'll never wear it.

[James Petregallo]

No, Two days. That thing is filthy and gross. Yeah. What have I order a coffee and

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'll never wear this again.

[James Petregallo]

You might as well get a bindle two days from now. It should come with a bindle because you're going to look like you're traveling the tracks.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm going to look so homeless.

[James Petregallo]

So anyway, they changed it to Burlington based on that because that's a good reason to name a town. So anyway, reviews of 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 pretty well. Okay, overall, it's pretty well.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They heard that I do enjoy their. Yeah, proper English.

[James Petregallo]

I don't think that's. Well, it might be, but I think they heard that instead of good, you're supposed to use well when someone asks you how you're doing. So they were like, overall, it's pretty well when that's a perfect opportunity for good. Also good would work here just as well, is what I'm saying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, both work.

[James Petregallo]

It's pretty well. Doesn't sound great. It doesn't flow as well, is all I'm saying. It doesn't have the flow to it. Events.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Probably the right usage, though.

[James Petregallo]

Not saying it's not. Yeah, it just doesn't flow very well.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sounds funny.

[James Petregallo]

Events for children and family oriented. Okay. Three stars. It's a decent town. But if you're young and looking for things to do, good luck. You run out of things pretty quickly. I believe that things to do meaning drugs, I would assume because you're gonna get bored fast. Here. Two stars. Finally. Here. The homes are fairly old and need work and improvement. Okay. I'm unsure of the interior of other homes. I just see the outside. The inside might be great. Nobody invites me over, but my home is furnished with our belongings from previous homes. You know how people like people. I don't know. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This guy thinks you go and buy new shit every time.

[James Petregallo]

You just leave it all behind. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Thank you for telling me how you move.

[James Petregallo]

I don't understand.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Did you rent a truck? Are you going to tell us that

[James Petregallo]

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 in a smaller home, so we put it in storage. And we're like, 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 before. The utilities and bills are old, so sometimes it can run high for this being a small home. What?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

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. People in this town, 56,563. And there was less when the murder occurred as well, but 56, 563. It's almost 52% women, 51.6% women. So it's a lot of women in this town. Median age is right at the national average. 38.8. Pretty close to it. Family in this town here, it's 44% married, but 24% single with children, which is more than double what we usually.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's pretty high the average.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So it's not exactly like a. A little suburb type of joint, you know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

But it's also a bunch of fun people.

[James Petregallo]

They seem to be having a good time. Yeah. I mean, they're fucking. I mean, that's good. That's always fun. No one complains about.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's the person that they made it with.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, that's fine. It's up to you. You can do whatever you want. Race in this town, 47.4% white, 29.2% black, 3.3% Asian, 17.6% Hispanic.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's like America.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's a very. Yeah. Well, a lot of Southern towns are like that, too. They'll be kind of half white house, really spread out. It's kind of nice. Yeah. So then we also have 43.2% of the people here are religious. And it's honestly spread out pretty good here. But the most, of course, is Baptist. As we know. Baptists are the Catholics of the south, obviously. They're everywhere down there. 0.0% Jewish. It is rural North Carolina. Unemployment here, here still is slightly low, slightly under the national average, but so is the median household income. It's very low. Normally it's about 69,000. That's the average here. The median household income, 47,158. Oh boy, that's low. That's not great. Cost of living here, 100 is regular. Average here it is 84. So not too, too low. The housing is, is the low thing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that low enough though?

[James Petregallo]

No, that's what 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, unless you're in West Virginia, that's a pretty good price. 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 someplace 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. Very affordable. Yeah, below the national average. Here is house number one, and I use the word house loosely. It is a trailer, single wide, appears to be three bedroom, two bath. It doesn't tell you the square footage. I'm gonna say about 890. Yeah, yep, exactly. It's a single wide trailer, about 800.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's 10 by 80 or 10 by 90.

[James Petregallo]

There's carpet in the living room, which I don't care for, and shit like that. It's not great, put it that way. It's a trailer built quote unquote in 2007. Assembled in 2007. 55,000 bucks for that though. And I bet that doesn't come with the land.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I think that's pretty good.

[James Petregallo]

I think so. If it comes with the land, it's fine.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It doesn't.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, if you got to pay a lot fee, then you're. You're shit out of luck here. Next up, four bedroom, two bath, 1168 square foot house. 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. You're cramming them into that. But small house. $205,000 for that though.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Holy.

[James Petregallo]

So, I mean, you could live in it. It's got four bedrooms, you got a couple of kids. Then if you want to spread out a bit, let's say tall drink of water, got to spread your shit out here. You got four bedrooms, six bath, T bowl for each and every B hole that you might have out there in the world. 5,237 square feet.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Big.

[James Petregallo]

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 too. Clearly kept up to date. $1,620,000 for that though.

[Jimmy Whisman]

1.6.

[James Petregallo]

1 point. Just had an $80,000. Price cut was 1.7. So give it a bit here. Things to do. Well, they also have the Burlington Carousel Festival.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

It's the largest event in Burlington, the Carousel Festival.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There's nothing I hate more than a carousel.

[James Petregallo]

It's stupid. It celebrates the historic hand carved 1910s Densel carousel. I don't know. That's like back in. That's the heyday of carousels. It's like 1910. 1910. People really didn't have radio yet. They didn't have anything to do. So sitting on a fucking wooden horse and going around slowly, that was an activity back in 1910.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Did it go up and down back then, you think? Or do you think that was like.

[James Petregallo]

No, I'm sure they had kids who had a day off from being newsies or pinboys, I assume would be up there doing this, raising the kids, covered in grease, you know what I mean? Looking like Dick Van Dyke and Mary Poppins.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You ever look up on a carousel? That is the most horrifying thing ever. There's just God's grease that's keeping this thing going.

[James Petregallo]

All sorts of mechanisms that can break, throw your child off. So the Carousel festivals features live music on multiple stages and all sorts of other shit. Here they have. Let's see who's performing there, buddy. Jewel will be there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, he's great.

[James Petregallo]

Are you kidding?

[Jimmy Whisman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

Is that a good. I don't know if you're kidding. I don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

A country singer. He's good.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, okay. I figured he was a country singer. That went without saying. I just didn't know anybody's ever heard of him before. What's nowadays might be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Did they leave off the Z? He's a rapper.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, Auto Tune Country. Fucking horseshit rap. That is the worst shit, buddy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jewel's a pretty decent singer. He's probably a douche. I don't know.

[James Petregallo]

I have no idea. But yeah, there he is. He's going to be performing there from 10:00am to. Oh, no, the concert's from 6:00pm to 7:30pm he's opening for the fireworks is what he's doing. Okay, that's a rough one. He is the headliner, but the fireworks are the real headliner.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's the real headliner.

[James Petregallo]

That's the headliner. Crime rate in this town, what we are interested in here, property crime about 25% 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% above the average.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So this place is a little frightening.

[James Petregallo]

This place is fucking. Yeah. No, no, it's deadwood over here. It sounds like it's not good. Watch out, it's Tombstone. So that said, let's talk about some murder. What are you saying, buddy? 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 I S E R Kaiser. So Blanche here, then she'll be Blanche Kaiser Taylor and Blanche Kaiser Taylor Moore also. Really, she's got some stuff here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Kaiser Taylor Moore.

[James Petregallo]

Kaiser Taylor Moore, which sounds like a law firm.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's almost a television show.

[James Petregallo]

Kaiser Taylor Moore. Yeah, it really is. February 17, 1933. She's born, all right, 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 Blank. 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. Good Lord, you couldn't be like, if you were telling a joke and you were trying to say someone was anonymous, you would say they're the fifth of seven children. That would be. You know what I mean? There's like no.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, poor sixth one.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah. Well, even the sixth, it's getting there at least like. 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 Flani. Flani Blanche Kaiser.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Her mother or his mother. Her mother.

[James Petregallo]

Her mother is Flannie Blanche Kaiser, so she's named after her mother's middle name. Now, PD dad is. 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 and at the same time was an ordained Baptist minister as well. So he would talk. 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

[Jimmy Whisman]

gonna burn on the other cheek.

[James Petregallo]

Hellfires is what they're talking about from sin and all that stuff. Anyway, that's what he was really into 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that right?

[James Petregallo]

He can't. Yeah, he's a. Yeah. That's what these guys do. That's their perfect cover. 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 front.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Kept it on the low, huh?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, I don't know how. It's a small town and you're the preacher, so everyone knows you. If you're out drinking, gambling, carousing, everyone's gotta know that you're doing that. Everyone's gotta know that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Just a cowboy.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Joke of. If you take one Mormon or to do anything, you have to take two because they keep an eye on each other.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. Yeah. Otherwise they'll.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But if one does it, the other one will do it too. And then they fucking just mums the word.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, you're gonna be tithing by the end of this trip.

[James Petregallo]

That's how it works. Somebody's gonna 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 Second World War time. 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 this is all undisputed. The stuff we've said so far. Dad definitely worked at the mills, definitely a Baptist preacher, and definitely a womanizer, carouser, gambler, whatever the fuck. Now, the rest of the stuff that happens to Blanche only comes from Blanche herself. Not saying that we have no reason to believe or disbelieve her. I'm just saying that 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is just biographical at this point.

[James Petregallo]

Autobiographical. Yeah, 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 a thing as possible.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What's worse?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's so bad. 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 he is anyway, so.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you about the best Father's Day gift you can possibly get. An aura frame.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Auraframes.com.

[James Petregallo]

that is right. A U R A frames dot com. This is the best gift ever. Aura frames will keep you and your dad connected. Suppose you don't live near your dad. Suppose your dad doesn't get to see maybe the grandkids all the time or something like that. You text him a picture sometimes, or he might see it on social media or whatever. But that is not this. This is the best. Get your dad this aura frame. You can upload pictures of it from anywhere, anytime, right to the frame. So new stuff will keep popping up. I gave my dad an aura frame, and it is right next to the kitchen table on a little table. And whenever we're over there, new pictures will pop up all the time that we add and that other People add and old pictures and oh there's your grandfather and there's your great grandfather. Lots of cool and you can see just stuff he puts on too. It's old memories for him. That is a good thing. People want that. And this is great for any family member. But dad, for father's day this is the way to do it. It's free, unlimited storage. Add as many photos as you want, any videos, whatever you want as well. You can share your photos and videos effortlessly. You just download the free Aura app or text photos straight to the frame. It's a top rated app to reach number one in the App Store on Christmas Day 2025. And it's worth it too. And every one comes by the way. Every frame comes in a premium gift box with no price tag. It's a cool, nice looking present. You're gonna come out smelling like a rose. Here, get your dad this. And Aura makes it easy to shop for dad. It's named number one by Wirecutter. You can save now by visiting auraframes.com for a limited time. Listeners can get $35 off their best selling Carver matte frame with the code Small Town Murder at the that's a U R A frames.com promo code small Town Murder. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

Hey everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you how to get a better habit going with Fum.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Try Fume f u m.com oh, this

[James Petregallo]

fum is great stuff. Fum is a flavored air device designed to help people quit vaping and smoking by breaking the hand to mouth pattern. It's simple, it's natural, and honestly, kind of genius. It's pretty cool stuff. No nicotine, no batteries, no vapor. Just a weighted, twisty, fidget friendly tool that gives your hands something better to do, better to reach for when cravings show up. Because cravings is not just about nicotine. It's a habit that you're doing. And that's the whole science behind it. That hand to mouth motion, oral fix, relaxation, the pause. And you get that little pause and the loop gets broken and the cravings spike. Fume is going to replace that habit with a flavored air fidget device that gives your hands and mouth something to do distracting cravings without nicotine vapor or batteries. Don't just try to quit. Upgrade the habit loop. Reach for fume instead. And I'm telling you, I have sat there on the couch when you get that moment. Oh, I'm going to go outside now. You grab the fume, you play with it a little bit, which is a big deal of the weight of it feels perfect. And then you just. You can draw on it. It's just air. There's no one's ever going to complain about you doing it or it's just. No one. It doesn't bother anybody. It's just a nice flavored air. I really like the flavors. Peach is my favorite, by the way. They have all sorts of different flavors, though. The strongest flavor is crisp mint. It's best for kind of heavy users. And they have a raspberry one that's tangy. It's on the sweeter end. And when you grab a Journey Pack, you'll also get a free gift just for using our code smalltownmurder. Fume has already helped 700,000 people take steps toward better habits. And now it's your turn. Try our code smalltownmurder to get a free gift with your Journey Pack. Just head to TryFume. That's T R Y-F U-M.com and use the code SmallTownMurder to claim your free gift today.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

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 wide umbrella. Both of those pretty good umbrella. 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. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Even Rizzo in Grease was a little 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?

[Jimmy Whisman]

My dad's sister is still that way. Or my grandfather's sister is still that

[James Petregallo]

way, telling people to my great aunt, stick it in her.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She's. She doesn't talk about anything like that.

[James Petregallo]

Oh.

[Jimmy Whisman]

About anything that's uncouth or unacceptable. She is so prim and proper. It's adorable. Yeah. She sits at the table and is like, I've taken a dick bigger than that turkey leg.

[James Petregallo]

You said that. And I'm like, oh, my God, I gotta meet your Aunt. She sounds hilarious.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She is pretty amazing, but she is proper. We played cards against humanity and she was red faced.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, I bet. Yeah, that's gonna be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She was so upse.

[James Petregallo]

The only reason you guys played was to see how red her face would get too. And you know it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She was not happy.

[James Petregallo]

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. Could 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 the. 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 Orphan Annie wasn't talking about this on the radio. You know what I mean? This is the mid-40s.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, I don't. I don't remember that.

[James Petregallo]

I don't remember that in the fireside. FDR chats. Come on, let's tell you about the wa. And by the way, let the guy do it on your face. It'll give him confidence to go fight the Nazis.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Never heard that, Oliver.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nanny says those dimples above her ass are thumb holders.

[James Petregallo]

They're thumb holders and you can fill. They also make wonderful jizz pools. So in 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 shithouse they were from. She marries a guy, and this is the weird part. You would expect her to find a very bad guy to marry a bitch of a man, a horrible alcoholic or, you know, somebody that something's under the surface. She marries a guy named James Napoleon Taylor. James Taylor. He's seen fire and he's seen rain. And here he is now, Marion.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Some bitch.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. He's a Korean war veteran. And so he must have just got home from the war. He's a furniture restorer by trade.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, that's a very patient man.

[James Petregallo]

That's a complete opposite. Like, that's a very patient, very meticulous, caring.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not an ounce of arthritis in that house?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, not at all. But there will be someday. 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 beat her, doesn't do anything. He's just a nice guy who goes and restores your credenza and then comes home and he's fine. 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 they'll have another daughter in 1959 named Cindy. In 1954, Blanche takes a job and this is going to be her career. She's going to stay here for decades. She takes a job at the Kroger's. If you don't know what Kroger is,

[Jimmy Whisman]

is that an early time for that store?

[James Petregallo]

I think North Carolina is the home of Kroger.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is it?

[James Petregallo]

I think so.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You might be right.

[James Petregallo]

I think it's like the base or Virginia or something. But that's where they started was North Carolina, because my dad lived there. You'd go to a Kroger and they'd say they've been here for decades.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My brother lived in Arkansas and it was huge there.

[James Petregallo]

It's big. Yeah, it's big in the south, in 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 country because they bought fries and they bought all that other.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They bought King Supers.

[James Petregallo]

They bought a whole bunch of shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They bought everything.

[James Petregallo]

But they've kept, for the most part, the brand names that they were. They've kept those on and not changed them to Kroger. But a lot of times you're shopping at a Kroger store, you don't even know it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You're buying Kroger shit off the shelf at that store.

[James Petregallo]

Their store brand stuff is not bad. Some of it too. They have decent store brand shit. The actual Kroger brand shit, 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 as a cashier at the Kroger supermarket in Burlington.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

And that's an important job back then. The cashiers are your eyes and they're the face of your store. The customers. There's no scanner. They're typing it in. They're having a chat with the customers. They know everybody.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They know everything.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they're typing in. I mean, they gotta be really good to not fuck up.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fuck, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

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. Hey, your sarcasm is true. That's exactly right.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's unbelievable.

[James Petregallo]

Head cashier. You collect the receipts from the other fucking women and then hand them to that guy. That's her job now. Thanks a lot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Do everything that that guy doesn't want to do.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. People wonder why women are fucking pissed off sometimes. And it's like, shit like that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Probably the best job in the store doesn't start with manager or even assistant.

[James Petregallo]

Just head. Yeah, man. So 1962, at Kroger, she meets a man. She's married, obviously, to James Taylor here, before Carly Simon got at him and wrote songs. So it's 1962, but she meets a man named Raymond Carlton Reed Reid. He's a manager here. He'll eventually run his own store. He'll be the big manager of a store here. He's a married man with kids as well, of course. But of course they have an affair. Now, we don't know when this fair. This affair starts. This Farah starts. I just said. I put the a start.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This Farah starts.

[James Petregallo]

This Farah starts. Where does this affair start? I want to ride at the Ferris wheel. So 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So either way, it still sounds like in the 60s. Love at first sight.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they're together now, but they're a lot. They're in it a lot here. From the mid. Either way, he put it mid-60s on now in 1966. Over the summer of 1966, Blanche does something very unexpected here. She has not spoken to her father since she got married.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

She left the house and said, fuck you. Which also, in the 50s, which also makes me believe what she said was true.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Cause if he was just a gambler and, you know, fucked other women outside. Daughters will forget.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He'd still come back for Christmas.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Sold you to cover his gambling death. That's, like, even grosser, isn't it?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And this Isn't like now where people just disconnect from, you know, their families in the 50s, nobody really did that. But, you know, even. No matter how terrible your family was, you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's my favorite trend that we can do now.

[James Petregallo]

Isn't it great?

[Jimmy Whisman]

So amazing.

[James Petregallo]

It is great not have to talk

[Jimmy Whisman]

to those people fucking.

[James Petregallo]

And it's like, hey, yeah, hey, I checked all around. There's no cords attached. I can just not talk to you being a jackass or I'm putting up

[Jimmy Whisman]

with the shit for.

[James Petregallo]

For years. What were we doing?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Crazy.

[James Petregallo]

So she reconciles with her dad. She went to see him. She made peace with him and started seeing him on a more of a regular basis here in the summer of 66. And also, if I'm her, I have two little girls. Ain't coming near those kids.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, it's more forgiveness than I've got to fucking spare.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. One of her daughters is like 13 at this point or 12 or something. You're not coming near my kid.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not a chance.

[James Petregallo]

Nowhere near. Nope. Then on September 18, 1966, P.D. kaiser, her father, at 62 years old, drops dead.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

So, I mean, he's been. He's a hardcore alcoholic and everything else. So this is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Perhaps she was privy to some news about some health complications and she just wanted to make peace with something and not have to deal with that for the rest of her life.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. That's super. And 62 in 1966, not a bad run either.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Pretty good run, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

The life expectancy was not 76 in 1962. It was way less.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is before 55, 60.

[James Petregallo]

I think it was about that because, I mean, this is before a lot of the drugs that keep you alive. Cholesterol things, heart things.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And the epa.

[James Petregallo]

And the epa, that too, yeah. Environmentally it was terrible. The smog, the poison and water and shit like that. And also just the shit people ate back then. It was normal to smoke two packs a day in your place while you drank a bunch of booze and ate fried beef constantly, every goddamn day. So that was normal. And this is before a lot of heart surgeries came up with yet or anything like that. So the official cause of death is a heart attack. And everyone goes. That seems right.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Probably had a few grits.

[James Petregallo]

Good. Yep. And he had symptoms, too. 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, vomiting, things like that can precede 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. Probably a lot. One weird thing, though, was his face turned bright blue at one point.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Bright blue?

[James Petregallo]

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, Thursday, November 25th, 1970. It's Thanksgiving Day. Okay. Now, James Taylor's mother, Isla. I S L A Isla.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Could be Isla.

[James Petregallo]

Isla, maybe. Yeah, well, her. Mrs. Taylor. We'll call her Mrs. Taylor. Isla. Isla. Isla Taylor. Who's Blanche's mother in law on this day. She dies on Thanksgiving Day.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

She's 83 years old. I mean, 83.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's just a bummer that it's that day.

[James Petregallo]

It sucks. Yeah. The families that were having, you know, she probably imagine. I bet her stuffing was still good, though. You know what I mean? They ate it. She was dying and made this great stuffing. Still. Damn it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

As long as she didn't drop the gravy boat and we're all out of gravy.

[James Petregallo]

That would be terrible. Thanks a lot. Hold on. Grandma. Grandma.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wake up, lady.

[James Petregallo]

You're coming. Grandma, you got to make more gravy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Have to dip the mashed potatoes in your shirt.

[James Petregallo]

Grandma, you drop the gravy you gotta make. Grandma. Grandma.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We're out of gravy now. You slip.

[James Petregallo]

Fuck. Who else knows how to make gravy? Anybody? Please. So, yeah, and this is. She's 83. She's born in the 1800s.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

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 realize they're gonna do that to us. Absolutely. Well, I hope I live long enough there. They do that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This thing's from the 1900s. Throw it out.

[James Petregallo]

I would love. Great. Sounds good. Because that's about right. That would be like about 2000. If it's 2070 and they just go, great, throw me in the garbage. I don't care.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's from the 1900s.

[James Petregallo]

Who gives a shit if I live that long. I'd be thrilled for that. But that's what they would do. They'd walk in and they'd go, jesus Christ. We're surprised she didn't turn to dust after she died. And they'd pull her out and throw her in the ground. Holy shit. So, yeah, that's it she dies, James is sad and Blanche comforts him. And that's that. She just lost her father a few years back. She knows the feeling. They can commiserate in the early 1970s. Now, Blanche and Raymond Reed from the Kroger there, they've been carrying on an affair for years.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Still going.

[James Petregallo]

They're still going strong. By the early 70s through all of this stuff. She's also having an affair the whole time.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nobody knows.

[James Petregallo]

Nobody knows. Nobody suspects it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Holy.

[James Petregallo]

They live very close to the vest kind of lives. Nobody's wild or whatever.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They're satisfying whatever each other needs and it just doesn't grow.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He can do whatever he wants and

[James Petregallo]

he's still staying with her and she is still married here. Then September of 1973 comes around. Okay, in September 1973, James Taylor starts showing flu like symptoms. He's 45 years old, so he's not an old man. He's not a super young man either.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We get sick.

[James Petregallo]

We get sick sometimes. So start showing flu like symptoms. Nausea, weakness, you know, flu. That's. Late September 1973. October 2, 1973, James Taylor died.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. A week later, dead, had a heart attack. And basically they put it down to he had heart failure after a pretty severe bout of the flu, which happens. That is a thing that happens. Had it real bad, they thought the flu.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And in the 40s, if you don't fucking take care of a flu, a cough, it will get worse.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, you can drop dead from the flu or you can be LeBron James. That's what's so weird about your 40s.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Kyle Busch or LeBron James.

[James Petregallo]

You can be. It's crazy. Even Kyle Busch. I'm talking. You can be like 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 to be there every time. So anyway, that's what happens there. So he's dead now. So she's had some tragedy happen. Kind of follow her around the last few years. So now she's a widow and she and Raymond Reed now date publicly because they're both single. May as well, might as well. So they stuck together. And apparently this is the romance of her life. You know what I mean? She's been with this guy. This has a real. We had to sneak around for years, for a decade. And now we can be together and all that stuff.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Now we know how to love each other and we just get to do it in the open eyes. That's great.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. She said also she probably would have married Raymond, except that she wanted to stay in Burlington to be by her family. And that he, as a manager in Kroger, keeps getting transferred around to different stores. So she doesn't want to move from town to town. Yeah, because he was in Durham for a bit and she went with him to Durham for a brief stint in the 70s, but didn't like it and went back. He was in Durham and Winston Salem and all that kind of shit. Now by the 80s, they're still together, but they're not really. They're not as in love as they were at one point.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The luster's gone.

[James Petregallo]

It's a little gone. Yeah, the bloom is off the rose here. It's a little wilty now. She was telling her psychiatrist at the time that her feelings toward him had just gone away from love. And now, now she can't stand him, really. Oh, you know, we don't even like him now. We 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 when it comes to relationships.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There's no reason to hate.

[James Petregallo]

Just tired of him, just been 20 years and now he's available and she's available. So, yeah, it's kind of not as dirty anymore. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Now it's legal, it's not far.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, she's like, just fuck me in the back of the car in a motel parking lot for old times sake. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Go get married.

[James Petregallo]

Makes it fun. Yeah. Hey, there's a nice lady just moved to town. So, January of 1985, Blanche's house burns down in Berlin.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, this is Calamity Blanche here. It's just following her. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not bad, something.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, that's fine. And she's like 52. Her kids are out of the house.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. If you don't want the maintenance of a fucking house, it's a great option. In her 50s and 60s.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, she's downsizing at this point, you know, that's all. Then February 1985, a month after she bought the trailer, the trailer burns down too.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, she says that she basically tells the police that there's a guy. She doesn't know who he is, but there's been a. A pervert stalking her for a while.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There's a perverted firebug somewhere, some perverted

[James Petregallo]

fire bug that gets horny. Like David Berkowitz gets horny over fire starting a fire. And she said that it had to be this guy because he started stalking her. And then her house burned down. Which she put down a coincidence. But now that this place burned down, too, she's like, it's gotta be this fucking guy burning my house down here. So. So then that year in October, Oct. 16, 1985, Blanche Taylor sues Kroger and an employee of Kroger for sexual harassment.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What year?

[James Petregallo]

1985.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You gotta really harass in 85, right?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah. Well, this is when you started to be able to sue for that kind of shit. At least at this time. This was when that was like a big joke. If you watch any SNL from the mid-80s, every goddamn sketch is like, sexual harassment. That was the big hot topic of the day.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But this is about, like. This is as early as it gets for that shit.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. To actually have people be on your side.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Consequences.

[James Petregallo]

And not say, hey, lighten up, toots. 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, that's how they used to act over there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And get me coffee.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, why don't you let me take a look at it while you go over there? Now she accuses a store manager named Robert Hutton, who everybody says she was having an affair with for a while by the way of sexual harassment. She files later a $15 million lawsuit against Kroger.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. Now, apparently, people said that Robert J. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Can you sexually harass your muse?

[James Petregallo]

I mean, if they're your fucking underling, I guess you can't do it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I guess you got to wait till we're in the dirty motel. You can't do it.

[James Petregallo]

That's what 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. Your underling. That's the problem.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Excellent points. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So, yeah, I guess.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I guess this is the reason that you don't fuck people that you work with.

[James Petregallo]

That's another reason why, you know. Well, any. With someone beneath you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. An equal, you know, hey, go after it, have fun.

[Jimmy Whisman]

If it's all fair game.

[James Petregallo]

If it's voluntary, if everyone's into it. Yeah, I would think. How else does anybody meet anybody?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know. I just don't think it's right to fuck people at work. I think that's weird.

[James Petregallo]

I think.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't think it happens all the time. I think that's everybody's.

[James Petregallo]

Most people who don't meet on the Internet meet at work.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I think that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That's where you're spending time with people.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'll bet there's more.

[James Petregallo]

Met my wife at work.

[Jimmy Whisman]

True. I'll bet more fairs happen. But you weren't her boss. I mean, that's neither. You could have fucked with either.

[James Petregallo]

No, I was an independent contractor. She worked at the box office. I'm a comic. Coming in once a month.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But the. I'll bet the vast majority of affairs happen. Start from work.

[James Petregallo]

Fuck, yeah. Absolutely right.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's the number one answer. Pre social media, Family Feud, fucking bing, bing, bing.

[James Petregallo]

Pre social media, pre. Somebody you knew in high school contacting you or.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's 100% of them.

[James Petregallo]

That's 100% now at family Feud, there's only one answer. Yeah, that's it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yes.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. Well, that's all. Yeah. In 85, though, that's where you met people. If you were married. There's nowhere else you go, really, to meet people. So she 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. She claims in the suit that he reached up her dress, exposed himself. These are two separate incidents. Reached up her dress one time, which seems pretty aggressive. Let me see what you got going on up there. Is pretty cool as it gets. I would say exposing himself is also pretty forward.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They're probably on par, right?

[James Petregallo]

That's. Yeah, yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's a dead heat.

[James Petregallo]

I think I'd rather have. If I'm a woman, I'd rather have someone expose themselves than grab. Than grab me physically, because at least I have a shot. At least I can go.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And he'd probably pull his pants up and run away, possibly. Unless he's like a Rapist in a parking lot. But like in a work environment. He probably wouldn't want you to sneak

[Jimmy Whisman]

a snicker at being assaulted.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, that's the worst day.

[James Petregallo]

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?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Which is, number one, insanely confident. And number two, absolutely a criminal act at this point in a goddamn office.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I can't.

[James Petregallo]

Are you ready for this?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that okay?

[James Petregallo]

How can you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean. I mean, even in a.

[James Petregallo]

Walks up to her like Donald Duck.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Even in a sexual environment, like in a hotel room or in your own

[James Petregallo]

bedroom, I would never imagine walking up with a shirt. And probably a dress shirt, too. Probably a dress shirt with your dick, hopefully, in his case, hanging below the bottom of it. I could only hope saying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Or. Sticking out of the fucking.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, sticking out of the flesh where

[Jimmy Whisman]

the last button doesn't click.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. I think he'll probably tuck him around the balls on the bottom. I think that's how he keeps it so the whole thing's displayed nicely. Are you ready for this?

[Jimmy Whisman]

The confidence.

[James Petregallo]

That's so much confidence. It makes me sick. And it's also. It makes me sick to my stomach, man. Imagine that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I've never considered that somebody couldn't be ready for.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, you ready for this? Imagine doing that. Imagine walking up to another human being and being like, what do you think?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Huh? I've never considered for a second that this might be overwhelming.

[James Petregallo]

Overwhelming. Have you?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Except for the mere self.

[James Petregallo]

For this. Are you ready for this?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yikes. Ooh.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He stepped out of them. That's as brave as it gets.

[James Petregallo]

Black socks pulled up to halfway up his calves, with dress shoes and a dress shirt tucked around his balls. That's how he walked.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I hope he's wearing those male garters that hold.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Walk that shit out of this room, sir.

[James Petregallo]

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. The store, which is hilarious, not the room. Cause his ass would be showing in a meat cutter smock. See a guy. Blood and viscera all over. All right, 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is Police Academy, for Christ's sake.

[James Petregallo]

That's what it's turned into. Yeah. Fucking Sergeant Harris is gonna come up and mess with us. Call Commandant Lessard, 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 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, and 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.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Yeah. That is shocking. No, she. So that's what she said. And she said, I can't have contact.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I can't work anymore.

[James Petregallo]

And so the Hutton guy was forced to resign, which in the 80s is a huge win, because in the 80s,

[Jimmy Whisman]

that means it happened.

[James Petregallo]

Well, that means at least the company believed it happened. They made him resign. But either way, it's hard because they were having an affair, too. So it's. I mean, so he would know if she was ready for it, technically or not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

Which is weird.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Certainly overstepped in a lot of different ways.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Or

[James Petregallo]

as we get into Blanche or she. We don't know. That's the thing with Blanche. You never know with Blanche.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Slide it. And was done.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, I mean, I hate to just. This all sounds very specific. I mean, she's 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 who knows here? We'll find out. Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you how to dress your best with quince.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Quince.com q U-I-N c e.com oh, you know it.

[James Petregallo]

Summer's coming up in summer. It's gonna change the way you dress. Changes the way I dress. You don't want to be hot and things like that. You want, you want pieces that feel lighter and more breathable. Things that are easy but you still want to look put together.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

You don't want to look like you're at the beach if you're not at the beach. That's why both of us, we keep going back to Quint's. Quint's is where you find everything. It is my first and last shop stop for clothes. Shopping for everything. They have what I need and I love it. They focus on high quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Like breathable linen, soft, organic cotton, well made basics. But without the luxury markup. That's the thing. It's luxury items without the luxury markup. It's a rare balance that everything feels elevated but effortless. It's good stuff. Quint's European linen pants and shirts are the perfect warm weather upgrade to add to your rotation. Starting at just $34, Jimmy loves his linen pants that he got in there. Their tees are soft and easy to wear. And their lightweight cotton sweaters are perfect for cooler summer nights. Everything at Quint's is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. It's incredible the way they do it. And it's so simple how they do it. They work directly with ethical fact factories and cut out the middleman. That's where all your money's going, to the middleman. Instead, you're just paying for quality. That's all you're paying for. Not some brand markup or advertising campaign or whatever. Quince goes way beyond clothing. Custom upholstered sofas, ceramic cookware, premium bedding. It's the kind of brand you end up recommending to everyone for everything. And that's what we do. And not just when we're doing an ad on our show. Right in real life, I tell people, you got to go to Quint's. It's amazing. See this shirt? It's really nice. Quint's. Great price. It's awesome. You got to go. Honestly, there's no reason to not check this out. You're going to love it. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quint.com smalltown murder for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N c e.com smalltown murder for free Shipping and 365 day returns quints.com

[Jimmy Whisman]

smalltown murder now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

Hey everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you about the best security you could possibly have.

[Jimmy Whisman]

SimpliSafe simplisafe.com S I M P L I safe.com Absolutely.

[James Petregallo]

In the United States, there's a break in every 26 seconds. That means over the course of this ad, like 3, 4 break ins will happen. That's a lot of break ins. And if you've listened to this show that you're listening to right now, Small Town Murder. You know what can happen when a break in happens? Bad things. So the problem here is most security systems only alert you after the break ins already started. Which you know by this show is way too late.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Way too late.

[James Petregallo]

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[Jimmy Whisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

Now, at the same time, here she is obviously still seeing Raymond Reed and has a new boyfriend as well, a Baptist. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Resurrected her love.

[James Petregallo]

That's right. That's absolutely right. She's going to make something else rise too. So they met here. Now he's divorced already, this guy. He is 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. And so they don't.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The IRS sees it that way.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. They don't have to hide or anything. So they start going to meals and. And she's a churchgoing widow lady and he's a divorced country preacher. And you know, they're going to 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, we took a little bit of flack. People not understanding that we were joking a few weeks ago when we had 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 because 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. We're joking. Yeah, we're making jokes. That's the point of the show. Yeah, we're joking. So in the mid-80s, a someone over 50 is way different than someone over 50 now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Way different. Look, they look it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Nowadays there's people in their 50s that look like they're 40, like they're 42. They look young back then. People in their 50s embraced looking older. And they, my grandparents, old people when they were in their early 20s.

[Jimmy Whisman]

My grandmother was 56 in. I don't know what year, but that's all I see her as. And 56 to me was so elderly because she looked shaky.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean. And it's the way they dress, the way they did things. She has gray hair in the. Like the perm turn up? Yeah, in the perm. She's got the gray hair, she's got the big glasses like the old lady has. She's a fucking ascot with the chain. With the, you know, the glasses, chain. She dresses in like white lacy shirts like a church lady. She looks like. She's like now, if you saw her, you'd go, eh, she's probably like 72, right? But she was like 53. So it's very interesting.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I never saw my grandma's cleavage ever. She never dressed like, you know, I mean like. Like a going out lady. She was always.

[James Petregallo]

My grandmother was a huge slut. Popping cleavage everywhere.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You saw Teddy.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But I mean, she always. She always had a fucking ascot or a. Oh, really? And a brooch.

[James Petregallo]

And my grandmother, Italian grandma would show a little cleavage, but she's Italian. Yeah, I mean, you know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. They wear a shirt, a V, neck

[James Petregallo]

of wood of something they're not shy about.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Grandma never did.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they're not shy. My other grandmother, I don't think she had any body at all. I think she was just a, you know, I think she was just smooth under there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Just a head.

[James Petregallo]

Just an old lady, that's all.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Just a head that yelled at me.

[James Petregallo]

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 Dwight Moore 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. New Year's Eve, December 31, 1985. Okay. Raymond Reed and Blanche are spending New Year's Eve together. It's a real night. She's making a pot of homemade potato soup.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nice.

[James Petregallo]

I fucking love a potato soup.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Hell yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Potato and soup together. Count me in.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's always creamy.

[James Petregallo]

It's delicious. Love it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's always so good.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, so good. 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 1, 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, essentially, this is what.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Turnpike chicken egg soup.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, man, that's the worst. Man can't have that. What's in this? Oh, potatoes. Turnpike, chicken. It's everything. Eggs. So he gets very sick, and he's gonna kind of stay pretty sick for the next few months.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

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 all put in together. He just goes through periods of being sick. He'd be okay. He'd recover, he'd go back, then he'd be sick again. So, I mean. And he's not a guy that likes to go to the doctor, and people are telling him he might have a stomach tumor or something. You gotta get real sick. You gotta 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Even when I'm egg poisoned, it's like two hours of insane sick. But it's never like that. I'm not throwing blood and stuff.

[James Petregallo]

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, probably just my body falling apart. That'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 does it say for Big Mac? Was that 419? Okay. Having a problem.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Big Mac looks like Big Mag.

[James Petregallo]

Now that's a big. What is that Big Mag you guys got there? So May 30, 1986, here. That's when he finally goes to the hospital to get checked out. So, I mean, he. Like five whole months he. 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. Cause he says that the doctor said he is dehydrated. He's. Nausea, vomiting, meets all the criteria.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I hate that medicine calls something like that acute. Because acute mathematically means small.

[James Petregallo]

It means small.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And this means extreme. Out of nowhere.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, I guess it means targeted at an area, I would assume.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And out of nowhere.

[James Petregallo]

And out of nowhere. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That word, though, makes me fucking not give a shit. But it means, you better give a shit.

[James Petregallo]

It means very bad.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Now, a 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, like a lot of the women did. She has a Tupperware, little Tupperware of red jello in her purse. So, I mean, grandma carries Jello. Who cares, right? But the doctor had noted that Raymond Reed told him he started vomiting the night before after eating Jello.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

But I mean, 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 jello if it made him sick?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right?

[James Petregallo]

We don't know it made him sick. June of 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 here, which is upping the ante a bit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And out of nowhere is horrifying.

[James Petregallo]

Acute upping of the ante right there. It's not good. Listen to his symptoms. Okay. Excessive nausea and vomiting, loose stools. Don't want that skin rash. Okay. Edema, 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 shutdown and numbness and tingling in his hands and feet.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What's he gargling water from the Congo or something?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, fucking Flint, Michigan. 10 years ago. This is. Yeah, he drinks from a puddle in Bangladesh. That's how it works.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's the only water.

[James Petregallo]

It's the only one. He's got to get it. It comes. It's tough to get, it's tough to get. One company makes it and you got to shake it because it's chunky. But there's like a, you know, just like a loose nail in there once

[Jimmy Whisman]

in a while if you don't mix it up the bottom, the bottom half, you got to chew.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, you got to chew. Yeah. Every once in a while, if I just find like a child's toe in there or something, you go, oh, that's what's in there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The fuck?

[James Petregallo]

Why? They're healthy people.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a crazy diagnosis.

[James Petregallo]

That's crazy. That is like by 6-1-85, that's what's going on. Then by June 5 or 86. I'm sorry, June 5, 1986. About a week later, he's feeling much better. Now his body's starting to recover. Here things look up. Briefly, the doctor tells Blanche and Raymond that he's only going to need a few more days in the hospital and he's probably going to be strong enough to go home and responding. 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. Plummets. The doctor said it was life threatening and ships him off to a bigger hospital now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Out of his care. This is June 13, 1986. He ends up at North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston Salem. Now, this is in 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 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. Give me a trumpet rip. These are kind of sad.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You know what those sound like?

[James Petregallo]

Bowels. Yeah, that's when it claps.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And it's good.

[James Petregallo]

Like it's leaking out like air out of a basketball you ran over. Just no good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's like a wet water balloon.

[James Petregallo]

Not great. Wow. Very poor bowel. Sounds I've never heard that as a medical thing on this. 700 something episodes of this show that's never come up before. Difficulty breathing and signs of kidney failure. 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 Guillabare syndrome. It's spelled different. It's spelled G U I L L A I N dash B A R R E accent. So that's how. That's French. I guess that's why it's Guillot, because that's the pronunciation of it. I had to look that up. That is a syndrome. That's the diagnosis they give him. Guillot syndrome. It's a neurological condition that causes all of these things, basically. And it looks like it has a pretty good umbrella control over the whole body here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's with your brain, right?

[James Petregallo]

That's neurological. Your brain and the pathways.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, Everything start fucking up.

[James Petregallo]

Everything fuck up now. Yeah. The main computer on your car goes. And next thing you know, your gas tank's 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 MayoClinic.com here says about this syndrome. A condition in which the body's immune system attacks the nerves.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

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. In its 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 begins. And those infections can include respiratory or gastrointestinal infections and things like that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Either way, the diagnosis is, you're fucked.

[James Petregallo]

And it can even be caused by the Zika virus. Even.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, shit.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So frightening.

[James Petregallo]

Frightening is what this sounds.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Horrible.

[James Petregallo]

Your body just decides, I'm gonna fuck with you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Look at that time. What are you gonna do?

[James Petregallo]

There's not a lot of what are you gonna do? It's 85.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Your body's failed.

[James Petregallo]

It really has. I mean, this is. It's a lot. So they say recovery may take up to several years, but most people are able to walk again six months after symptoms. Able to walk again.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is, I came in here with diarrhea. Now we're talking about I might not walk again.

[James Petregallo]

Now we're talking about, here's your wheelchair. Now this is how it works. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Those are some very unwell sounding bowels.

[James Petregallo]

I just had Arby's earlier. That's what I'm here for. This is crazy. You want to put me in a wheelchair.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I ate jello. And now you're talking about I may not walk again.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Go.

[James Petregallo]

Basically anything. It ranges from recover pretty quickly to drop dead to being paralyzed, like anywhere in between there. It's a very vast.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All because your brain just chose.

[James Petregallo]

It just chose to. Yeah, chose to. Your motherboard fried, man. Shit just started going against itself. June 21, 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. Over the next few days, he becomes nearly completely paralyzed. Okay. Now so they try a procedure called plasma ferroris. Ferrasis. Plasma ferrosis, which is basically washing your blood. I feel like this is what like Keith Richards had done every three weeks while he's on the road. Keep them going this long. Just give me a whole new batch. Everybody put. Now put the heroin in the one arm, put the washer in the other. Swirl around, man, It'll be a good high.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wash your blood. Like there's brushes or something.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. I don't know why I pictured like tiny, tiny, microscopic elves doing it, like while they're singing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Well, do that or you eat a Tide pod. James.

[James Petregallo]

I'll give it a shot. Why not? And he improves a little bit. Okay, then. 6-27-2886. 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 till later. But there was a resident responsible for this. As hospitals run on kind of almost free labor a lot. As these residents, they depend on them a lot. And the residents obviously need it to become doctors. So it all works out. It all works out. But this resident here, they rotate them a lot. I don't know if now, but at least back then they were. And he was rotated to a different hospital 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That abergnow guy, he just looked at and said, I concur.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fuck.

[James Petregallo]

That's the way it works. So that is fucking horrible. So no one ever saw what happened. Okay. With the results and. And we'll find out in a minute here. The problem. Well, might as well tell it now. Actually, the problem with the results are they say that he has, quote, quite elevated levels of arsenic in his urine.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Which is not good from arsenic, I would assume. Yeah. That's about it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's the only way.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So July through September 86. Okay. He gets better. He gets some movement back. He can breathe on his own. And he's starting to do better because he was in a. Seriously locked in, like, icing, constipated and fucking paralyzed. He's doing so much better that Blanche asks 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. But he's in a. How do you expect him to recover if he can't even eat the foods he loves and gets his 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. You know what I mean? 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 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. So at some time in here, he signs his will, making her a one third beneficiary of his estate.

[Jimmy Whisman]

One third?

[James Petregallo]

One third. Because I think he has two kids too, so I think he chopped it up like that. So, I mean, yeah, he's sitting by her side, she's sitting by his side, showing her devotion to him. And he decides to repay her that way, just in case things go badly for him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

End of September 1986, he suffers another setback.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Damn it.

[James Petregallo]

The doctors had started talking about sending him home like a couple 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 turn. So he's essentially been in the hospital for five months at this point.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Horrible.

[James Petregallo]

October 1, 1986. This is the time this Elisa Hutchins, who's the head nurse in the icu, which is much better than head cashier at Kroger's, by the way. It's a big one.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She makes better money.

[James Petregallo]

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, Stephen, who was a student at East Carolina, visited his father. And he found that his father had eaten breakfast, and he stayed through the 5th 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 taking 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 he barely recognized him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, he Looked that bad?

[James Petregallo]

He said he looked like he gained 100 pounds overnight because he was so swollen. Swollen? His whole body. His face. He said this is horrifying. Steven said his eyeballs were even starting to swell and his skin was splitting.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Splitting? What does that.

[James Petregallo]

Like you're the fucking. The Hulk or the Wolfman or something like. Yeah, your skin stretches a lot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's got Teen Wolf in there.

[James Petregallo]

Think about that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Dude, this is like.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why would. Why would it be slitting?

[James Petregallo]

I don't know if this is like some. You know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I didn't know there was anything that could do that.

[James Petregallo]

God damn it. The goddamn horror guy. Who does. Who made the headphone for scanners? No, no, the goddamn special effects guy. Savini. Tom Savini. This is like a Tom Savini creation. Like, swelling with the skin splitting. Like, this is horrifying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Only time I've ever heard of skin exploding like that is like falling off a building. I didn't know that you could just get sick and expand so much your skin rips.

[James Petregallo]

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 to blonde, your skin can't catch up.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. You can't go from me to Fat Albert and then expect it to hold it all.

[James Petregallo]

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 7, 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 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 7, 1986.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is the toughest son bitch I've

[James Petregallo]

ever heard of and the worst year I've ever heard of. That's the worst 10 months I've heard of a human being living. That's awful. Awful.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fuck. He fought.

[James Petregallo]

And it's the. How do 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 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You poke that swollen man, he's going to explode.

[James Petregallo]

You leave him alone. He's been through enough.

[Jimmy Whisman]

God damn.

[James Petregallo]

So, yeah, Steven said that Blanche told her this is Raymond's son. 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. What are they. How are they gonna 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's probably why, because they can't. Why cut his fucking chest to figure it out?

[James Petregallo]

Can't really take organs out and stare at him in the light and shit and really get a good candor at them.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They're lost.

[James Petregallo]

They're lost. So they bury him because, I mean, he has a cause of death, that 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No autopsy?

[James Petregallo]

No autopsy? No. They figured they knew what happened to him, they just didn't know how it happened. But they didn't know if they could find that out from an autopsy anyway.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They were like, his brain control deleted. What do you want?

[James Petregallo]

That's it. It's all gone now. So the nurses said that Raymond had become their favorite patient. One said, 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. Now, remember I said how she signed over his estate? Yeah. Apparently, here, while Raymond was laying. And this happened 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. 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 hands the guy. He drafted the documents and brought them to the hospital. Now, Raymond Reed couldn't talk. All he could do is nod his head and squeeze a hand.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So the nurses helped him interpret everything. And the lawyer asked in front of witnesses, the nurses, whether Reid understood that leaving his Property to Blanche meant 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 nodded yes to both. 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. You can do that. So that's what he did. That's how this happened, while he was unable to even sign his name. So Blanche, obviously, this is dead man number two. Three, if you count her dad in her life. Heartbreaking. So, I mean, but you gotta move on.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You can't just sit back and let life kick you in the balls.

[James Petregallo]

Well, especially if you're already going out with another guy, too.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. You already got another boyfriend.

[James Petregallo]

That's kind of hard. So, yeah, now she just takes up with the good Reverend Dwight Moore and they begin seeing each other publicly. Now it's really out in the open. You know, they're two nice older people that are finding each other and everyone thinks it's sweet, essentially. That's it. Look at them. Yeah. He says that he occasionally drove, by the way Dwight would. Occasionally drove Blanche to the hospital to see Reid. And he accompanied her to the funeral, which is ballsy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, shit.

[James Petregallo]

That's a wild one. Hey, everybody, if you, you know, if your spouse dies, don't bring a hook up to the funeral. That's a little weird. Yeah, that's just too much.

[Jimmy Whisman]

In front of the kids.

[James Petregallo]

In front of the kids. Yeah. That's wild. So, I mean, she could say he's my pastor, though. That's the thing. He's helping me through this hard time.

[Jimmy Whisman]

My spiritual advisor.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. Helping me out here. Now, he says, this is old Reverend Moore 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 hangout buddies. They're like the Golden Girls, basically. They just sit around, eat cheesecake, gossip.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We had lunch one day, and he said, one day.

[James Petregallo]

Put Jazzercise. 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 led him somewhere where he screamed, Jesus. But it wasn't at church, I'll tell you that much. He was yelling Jesus. So here he is, this guy, and he believes this. He said, as far as he knows, they're just two devoutly religious People who found each other and they've both known loss. That's all. So maybe they'll get married. Wedding bells on the horizon for these two.

[Jimmy Whisman]

May as well.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Well, on November 4, 1986, Dwight buys a $571 ruby and diamond engagement ring for Blanche.

[Jimmy Whisman]

How about that?

[James Petregallo]

That's a few grand now. Not bad.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, that ain't nothing then.

[James Petregallo]

No, no, not at all. And they planned to marry, but the wedding kept getting postponed. November 1988, they were on their way to get their marriage license. Like on the way to the courthouse to get their license. And he threw up. 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. You trying to get out of this? What are you pretending you're sick to get out of this? You don't want to marry me. And breaking balls, by the way, during this time, Blanche has some more calamities here. She's diagnosed with breast cancer, she tells him in 1987. So they pushed the wedding back a little bit. July 29, 1987, Blanche accepts a settlement from Kroger.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Out of court. It isn't for $15,275,000 she gets out of them.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's quite the settlement.

[James Petregallo]

For them, that's a go away. And for her that's exactly what it is. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They don't believe in her.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean. Yes, they don't now. I mean, they're the defendant. So I mean, that's not shocking.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That they believe in. She also doesn't. It's also. Now get out of our hair. But guess what? You're probably gonna have to work again.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. Exactly. Or maybe. Well, at her age though, when you put that into some investments and stuff, you might be able to live off that for a while.

[Jimmy Whisman]

In 87, possibly at her age, but

[James Petregallo]

not much for another 25 years. Probably if she had something else, a little 401k saved up her insurance from in 87.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Did a 401 exist? I don't know where that started.

[James Petregallo]

They had some kind of saving iron.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She better have some other income, is the point. That ain't enough?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, no, I mean, it's tough. I don't know. You could probably pull that off back then, I bet.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Stretch it.

[James Petregallo]

If you lived in A trailer that you own, maybe?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, you know, you weren't going on extravagant vacations with Social Security kicking in, too. In 10 years, you could probably make that just do fine for you back then.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Maybe not.

[James Petregallo]

You're not gonna live large or anything, but, you know. So, yeah, then she develops that. She says, now this is what she tells Dwight. A mysterious intestinal ailment again. Oh, I'm starting to think, is there something in the house? You know what I mean? If I'm the doctors, I'm like, where do you live? What's going on?

[Jimmy Whisman]

She's got cancer.

[James Petregallo]

Do you have, like, a furniture that's just mold? Like a recliner that's just upholstered mold, essentially? Is that what you're doing here?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Do you live on Jeff Ross or Bob Ross's?

[James Petregallo]

Bob Ross, Yeah. Yeah. What are you doing? What are you holding the fucking. The vat of holding the turpentine bucket. Cancer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Turpentine, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So she said that this required two surgeries as well. 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. Yeah, it's not good. Now. April 19, 1989, the wedding finally happens.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Here we go.

[James Petregallo]

She becomes Blanche Kaiser Taylor Moore. So many they went to where everyone goes on their honeymoon. New Jersey.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that right?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah. Everyone knows everyone. I believe it's probably Trenton. Everybody wants the glories of Trenton for their honeymoon. The romance, the intrigue. Probably Atlantic City.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Patterson.

[James Petregallo]

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'd go in April. I don't know where you'd go in New Jersey for honeymoon in April. I don't know. So anyway, they go there, and here they are, married. A preacher and his wife and everything else. Five days later, they get home. Okay. She comes home with curtains for their house. And they're home now. They only were there a few days. And a chicken salad sandwich for Harry Potter. That's nice. She came home with curtains and stopped and grabbed him. Lunch, too. Isn't that nice?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Pretty good day. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Two hours later, he gets very sick. Okay. Very 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Did you bring that home from Jersey?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So he's admitted to the Alamance County Hospital again. Now, one of the things he says to his doctors, because they're like, would you ingest what's going on? He goes, 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't even know that that roundup's toxic at this point.

[James Petregallo]

Fuck, no. They're like, this is the best. Put it on your salad. You know, they're like, fucking. Go ahead. It's awesome. Spray it right on there like a balsamic vinaigrette.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's wild. How much of that stuff was just out there?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, just everywhere. We don't know. Still in the ground. Still out there. We don't know what it did. Fuck, no. No.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Find out in fucking 2045.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, but let's blame cancer on other things. Not poison that we've been having put on us for a long time.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We've just been walking around spraying in our feet for the last 30 minutes.

[James Petregallo]

Couldn't be that. Couldn't be that. Couldn't be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Put it into a fine mist and spray it in the air.

[James Petregallo]

It's real fine, so it can really get in your nasal passages.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Or you could get to the end of the nozzle and spray it into a stream where it just bounces up to your face.

[James Petregallo]

That's what you really want. That's good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Put it in a pressurized jug that you just carry around.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. There you go. Christ. So they move him between the Alamance 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't want anybody.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, I'm still here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't want honor of somebody that died here. I don't want to.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

North Carolina Fixer Hospital.

[James Petregallo]

Fixer. Feeling good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fix everything.

[James Petregallo]

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 weeds. 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 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. Our young people aren't really kids. Then he gets worse. Damn 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 to see if that's what's overwhelming him. Now the test results come back, and this is fucking crazy. The doctor says that he has, quote, 20 times the lethal dose of arsenic in his system. 20 times the lethal dose. He said it's, quote, the most ever in a living patient in this hospital.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Never seen a person with that much arsenic who's not dead.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I want to give you some good news, bad news. I'm impressed.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, you are.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Bad news.

[James Petregallo]

Strong.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm not going to be impressed long.

[James Petregallo]

You're an ox, let me tell you that. So 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Literally, you got enough to kill 20 of you.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, 20 of you. But apparently he is a real strong guy and he. He had 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 whatever. And he said, well, yeah, my wife's ex boyfriend died of that guillet barrier or whatever the fuck it is syndrome.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Died of beignets.

[James Petregallo]

All the beignets killed him. That's what it was. That wasn't powder on top. That's the problem. Wasn't powdered sugar. So they went, really? And they know that that looks a whole lot like arsenic poisoning. The 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. Like, hold on now. 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, oh, it's fucking crazy. Dwight said, your body swells, you retain fluid, your kidneys 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Give this man his last rites and say goodbye. That is the craziest. Horrible. That sounds terrible.

[James Petregallo]

It sounds of a way to die.

[Jimmy Whisman]

God. Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

That sounds horrif. It's months of pain and horror. It's fucking bad.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You explode internally.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. It just eats you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

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 rings.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's in there.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's rings in a tree, essentially. They can really get it down. And they said, why is your hair so short? Did you just. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

So they can't. So they had to test his pubes. Oh, she didn't think to shave his balls. She forgot that part.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You give yourself haircuts down below? Never, sir.

[James Petregallo]

Perfect. Perfect. Let's go. No, no, let's see if we can

[Jimmy Whisman]

get some of the longest ones.

[James Petregallo]

No, no. It's like getting Santa Claus and a leg lock down there. Everybody bring in. Bring in the tweezers. All right, so the investigators, they're talking to him. He's telling them of the other of Reed's death. Because when they said, do you know anybody that Blanche has known who's died under unusual circumstances? And he said, her ex boyfriend 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. And he said, what happened, Blanche? What's going on? And she said, I'll tell my side at the right time.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

Which is not the answer you want out of your wife at that point.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That is not what I asked you, babe. Nope.

[James Petregallo]

So then in 1989, they get the backhoes out, they get the bulldozers and the shovels out because they're gonna go a digging.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Digging folks up.

[James Petregallo]

We're gonna dig a bunch of people up. By the way, this is. Wow. It gets Way bigger. They have court orders. And exhume the bodies of P.D. kaiser, her father, James Taylor, her first husband, Raymond Reed, the boyfriend, and Isla Taylor, the mother in law. What?

[Jimmy Whisman]

They pulled her out too?

[James Petregallo]

They're pulling everybody out. They also pulled Joe Mitchell, a 57 year old meat cutter at the same Kroger store where Blanche once worked. Wow.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Anybody that's died in her orbit, we're pulling them all.

[James Petregallo]

They're also. They want to exhume Ina P. Vinson, a 74 year old whom Blanche visited with gifts of food during her final days of an illness in 1977.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Holy shit.

[James Petregallo]

John W. Reber, a 77 year old who attended Dwight Moore's church before Reber'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 is exhumed. The body's taken to the medical examiner's office here in Chapel Hill. Autopsy performed. They find clearly recognizable MES lines. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

67 times higher. Wow. As a result of these findings here, Dr. John D. Butts. B U T T S Butts. That's awesome. And Chief Medical. He's the chief medical examiner. Concluded that Reid died as a result of the complications of. Of arsenic poisoning.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Furthermore, he said based on analysis of hair samples from the exhumed body of Reid, 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 Reid's hair correspond to. Because they can tell when it happened. A long period of ingestion of arsenic. Multiple ingestions.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's eaten. Ingested a whole bunch of this one.

[James Petregallo]

Over a long period of time.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

He noted that the arsenic level peaked at 70 parts per million. Which is roughly 70 times the normal level.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fuck.

[James Petregallo]

That is crazy. It should be, I guess, one part per million. I assume so. James Taylor. Remember her? Him?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Old James Taylor. July 6, 1989. He is exhumed and the autopsy results are. Died of Arsenic poisoning, mother. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The 80. The 83 year old has. What the fuck could she have done wrong?

[James Petregallo]

Mother in law, man, you know, told

[Jimmy Whisman]

her the seat in the back isn't near punishment enough.

[James Petregallo]

No, she just told her not. She didn't put the sweet shit on the sweet potatoes or whatever the fuck they eat down there and that she lost her mom.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Imagine an 83 year old is the target of your ire.

[James Petregallo]

She shouldn't have talked shit about the green bean casserole, Jimmy. That's what happens. Cross me with one of my appetizers and see what happens. You're going down, grandma.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Holy fuck.

[James Petregallo]

What the fuck is happening?

[Jimmy Whisman]

That is dark.

[James Petregallo]

That's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, I would say James. On Thanksgiving Day.

[James Petregallo]

On Thanksgiving. Shit is dark, man.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow, that's the most vicious thing I've ever heard in my life.

[James Petregallo]

She was doing that while the lions lost. Think about that. Yeah, that's what's going on.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She's watching Landry stomp on his hat while she's sprinkling that over some fucking stuffing. What the fuck?

[James Petregallo]

This is crazy, right?

[Jimmy Whisman]

My God. An 83 year old on Thanksgiving Day is the most horrific thing I've ever heard.

[James Petregallo]

She was planning on killing his grandmother on Christmas but couldn't get around to it. You know what I mean? She's 102, so you never know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's unbelievable.

[James Petregallo]

It's wild. Now, Lieutenant Steve lynch, in addition probably to walking around annoying people with his guitar comic humor.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that who that is? Stephen Lynch.

[James Petregallo]

Stephen lynch, yeah. Chief detective of the Burlington Police. Everyone's gonna say how much they love him. I get it. Okay, okay.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He is very witty.

[James Petregallo]

He's 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That. That is. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Which is a compliment. He's as good as you can do for with that. Honest. I can't stand if you just have a guitar. I'm like, I don't. I want to hear your thoughts.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm not listening.

[James Petregallo]

I'm not clapping along. I don't want to do that. But he's good at what he does.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And the Crowds out for it in a song.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, my goodness. He changed that to the F word. That was clever. But people love him. I get it. That's fine.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But I love the Dan band a lot. So there's that.

[James Petregallo]

That's funny, because that's a whole band love that guy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I love all.

[James Petregallo]

That's a whole band, though. They're committing. That's such commitment. That's such commitment. This is just one guy, a comic, who's like, I can get people to clap along, and it's easier to follow someone when I have a guitar, essentially because I'm different.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The other reason, the 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 so wealthy he doesn't have to do a goddamn thing. But he runs out there showing us. I'm talented, too, motherfuckers.

[James Petregallo]

I could do something.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I love him.

[James Petregallo]

So this guy said that. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sweet Christ.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Holder was convicted in this courthouse, the same one where Blanche is arraigned. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

We'll get to that. He said, you can't just exhume bodies for everybody that calls in. Can't just pull everybody out of the ground. You need a court order with a reason for it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She killed an 83 year old on Thanksgiving Day.

[James Petregallo]

Maybe on that. We don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Cold hearted.

[James Petregallo]

Cold hearted. So those lines, those clearly recognizable lines across the fingernails of Reid are 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 Reid died as a result of the complications of arsenic poisoning.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, it is amazing. Your fingernails will tell you there's ways to tell if you have cancer by the way your nails fit together. If you could see. If you could see through it that you. You're fine. But if. If it's flat and there's no gap at the. At the cuticle, you're in trouble.

[James Petregallo]

Is that real?

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's real.

[James Petregallo]

Really?

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a real thing? I don't know. I saw it on the Internet. So maybe now you got.

[James Petregallo]

I feel like that's one of those. If your hand's bigger than your face. You have cancer type of things, then.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No, no, no.

[James Petregallo]

Is that a thing? No, no, no. It's a joke. As a kid, people go, if your hand's bigger than your face, you have cancer. People go like that. And then you smack their hand into their face. You didn't grow up in New York. We were mean to each other.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay. But yeah, that's the thing. That's a cancer fact that I can

[James Petregallo]

see you through here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You can see through it?

[James Petregallo]

Hell, yeah, we're doing okay. I'm not dead yet, baby. I'm not dead yet.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's the thing, though.

[James Petregallo]

Is it? Wow.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know.

[James Petregallo]

I know you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Your nails tell you if you're helping someone, like, things. Things show up in your nails. That. That. I mean, you should probably know the things. You can't just decipher it, probably. No, the average person. But they're, I'm sure, a nail tech. So really dip your hands.

[James Petregallo]

Doesn't say, you should stop going to your doctor and start going to see the Vietnamese ladies down at the nail shop. They'll get. They'll tell you if you're fine or not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Go get a manicure. They'll tell you, oh, you got cancer.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they'll tell you you have cancer. And you can go, oh, shit. And they can emotionlessly tell you you have cancer. And then they'll just.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Very cold.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's right.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You want jello?

[James Petregallo]

Like a doctor. Yeah, like doctors. That's what I mean. They'll get the attitude of a doctor of like, well, you have cancer. I don't know what to tell you. There you go. Anything else? So, want a lollipop? So the chemistry professor here, the Dr. Vincent Guinn, he's the guy who analyzed Reed's hair. 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 ingestions. So he could see no arsenic for a couple weeks here. A bunch of arsenic for a couple weeks here. You can look at it. Which is wild. And he said the hair. Said again and again and again, arsenic, arsenic, arsenic. This Dr. Guinn, 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, possibly.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What did he figure out?

[James Petregallo]

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 don't found some neutrons.

[Jimmy Whisman]

James.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, these are bullet fragments. And they went, yeah, we 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 you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I think he died of gunshots.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

These went through a body. That's my personal opinion.

[James Petregallo]

One of these exhumations is the co worker, Joseph Mitchell, the meat cutter there, who was 57. His body showed no elevated arsenic and he died of natural causes.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Damn.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No, there's a reason they put skull and crossbones on that fucking rat poison.

[James Petregallo]

Poison is what I see. Don't touch that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's bat shit.

[James Petregallo]

So it's a naturally occurring element here. It's been around. People have used this to murder people for thousands of years.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, I mean, I think it was in.

[James Petregallo]

This is biblical shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

The Romans, well, before shakes. The Romans, this is how they would kill each other. I mean, you want to knock off and that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

You want to knock off your uncle who's the emperor. So you can be the emperor. This is how you do it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And arsenic's just in the environment, Right. It's in water and stuff like that.

[James Petregallo]

It's a naturally occurring substance. Absolutely. They call it inheritance powder, which I think is. They've called it that since like the 1200s.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's amazing.

[James Petregallo]

Some comic in the 1200s put that 1200s, put that on his stone Instagram page.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He hammered that into a tablet, put

[James Petregallo]

it up against the wall and he's like, eh. As people went by, they were like, they just gave thumbs up.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He picked that up off a bar stool on a stone roll. But inheritance factor.

[James Petregallo]

Then somebody picked up a stone and started chiseling and he's like, what are you doing? He's like, I wanna share this. I'm like, oh, that's how you had to share back then. It's very difficult.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm making a greeting card.

[James Petregallo]

I'm sharing. Yeah. So it's powder. You can make it into tasteless, odorless white powder. You'd never know it's there. That's what's fucking crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The most frightening substance on the planet is what it's called.

[James Petregallo]

Terrifying. You can just put it in food and drink and no one will ever fucking know about it. Especially if it's something that tast strong. You never think of that. Now 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 a healthy person just eats something then keels over, you know, secret's 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. Is chronically ill. Gradually getting sick. Gradually getting sicker. And it mimics shitloads of very common things as we saw. That's why they keep getting misdiagnosed.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

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?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, that's the problem.

[James Petregallo]

Then it hits the skin. Rashes, swelling. Eventually you can swell so much the skin can split.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's insane.

[James Petregallo]

That is disgusting. Holy shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Horrible.

[James Petregallo]

It fucks the kidneys up. The marrow and the blood shuts down your systems one at a time. And basically in the 60s, 70s and 80s, if someone wasn't thinking there's a probability this person's being poisoned, they're not gonna look for that. They're just gonna 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 got flu like symptoms from shingles. That's what they thought it was. Then he got worse.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It essentially just sits on the side of your house and flips each little breaker until they're all off.

[James Petregallo]

Living room you don't need in your laundry room.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And the outlets in the kitchen.

[James Petregallo]

AC units, GFI units there. Not gonna need that fucking main breaker.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Goodbye.

[James Petregallo]

That's all it is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

And the bands go across the fingernails and there's also the hair. And that's the one that really locks in the toxins here. So, yeah, and like I said with the hair, they don't just say there was arsenic. They can basically tell you the specific dates when there was arsenic.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Looking it over, I mean, they can kind of figure it out. And get within about a week of when the fuck this happened.

[Jimmy Whisman]

A hair only grows like a quarter of an inch a week. So if you've got. Got two inches of hair, you've got so much time.

[James Petregallo]

There's. It's a whole. It's like a stock ticker back in the day. They're coming out of the thing. Oh, it was higher yesterday. I mean, it's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. Oh, no. I'm losing money. 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 you have to sign for. You can go into any hardware store and buy poison.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's at Kroger's.

[James Petregallo]

It's at Kroger's. 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. A n T I A N T. Ant killer. Or in her case, kill your aunt.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Maybe people kill her.

[James Petregallo]

It was manufactured by a company called Atla Chemical Company in McLeansville, N.C. little company. They just make poison.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Gross.

[James Petregallo]

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 active ingredient, you know, poison. And that the states exhibit 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 also, a Kroger coworker 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Can you run down the store and get my murder weapon?

[James Petregallo]

Wow. Can you imagine being like, can you hand me that gun there? Thank you. And then shooting the guy. Hey, get it yourself next time.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Toss me those.38 rounds.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Jesus Christ. And a former coworker named Leonard Wolf, who ran a little convenience store called Ken's Quick E Mart, remembers Blanche coming in 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. Anti in stock.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow. Is that liquid or A powder. Do you know how does. It's a powder.

[James Petregallo]

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 gotta have a little talk with old blanchy girl here. So what have you done? They sit her down. Yeah, what have you done? And she comes in like a dress and a blouse and big glasses with the gray hair.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, she's wearing an ascot.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. She's almost 60 years old and dresses like she's 76. So she comes in and she sits down. She denies everything. I don't know what you're talking about. They ask about arsenic and she said, they probably took it themselves. Everybody, you 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'll drink ant poison.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And they were like, well, I mean, let's forget about your alive husband. Let's talk about your two dead husbands, 15 years apart. They both had the same idea to just spread rather than sweet and low in their coffee. They're going to use fucking arsenic today.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Throw that in your fucking summertime lemonade.

[James Petregallo]

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 hair cut, right? We had to use pubes, man.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What the fuck? Basically, you got us digging around in a man's crotch.

[James Petregallo]

In an old man. In an old dying man's crotch, you scumbag. So here are some excerpts from the interrogation, which is great that we have this. The cop said, when he, meaning Raymond Reed, started getting real sick when he was at the hospital, did you ever carry him food or anything? Did you take food in? She says, no, you couldn't carry him in food, which we know is a lie. They said you never carried Raymond no food while he was in the hospital.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

This is a homicide detective.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She said, the man went to school for this.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. This is an important man in the community. Yeah. 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. Into his room sounds. Why are you qualifying it with that? They said, did Raymond ever give you any money?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

She said, 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 $1,000 in Colorado. When he was in Colorado, he felt so guilty, gave her a check for $1,000. They said, what was the most he ever. Was that 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's a real giver.

[James Petregallo]

This Kroger manager gig is crushing, man.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Wow.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, you don't. You don't. Grocery store managers make a killing, apparently, so. They really do.

[James Petregallo]

He's doing great down there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The highest paid person in the store. And they move them to other ones based on how well their store.

[James Petregallo]

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, fair money.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a early 2000s was six figures. They're doing great.

[James Petregallo]

That's great then. Yeah. I don't know if you had a fair money, but I guess you did.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know. Is six figures affair money? I don't think it is.

[James Petregallo]

I think that's in the 80s.

[Jimmy Whisman]

In the 80s, six figures is affair money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if they were making that. They're probably making 80 grand a year in the 80s. If they're making six figures in 2000, they've got to be, right?

[James Petregallo]

They got six figures in the early 2000s. That's. That's a lot of fucking money.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's a lot of money. I mean, when I say 650. 130. 140.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. That's a fair money. In 2002 for sure.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Probably. Yeah, yeah, that's if. If they split this in half. Who gives a shit? I'm still making 70 grand.

[James Petregallo]

I can still afford. It's like my math joke. I can get that one bedroom. I can do it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, I can still. Oh, fuck. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So then the cop said, well, it's obvious that he must have really loved you. Try and bait her 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. It says Raymond knew about Dwight. Oh, that's what she says. So she wasn't really having an affair. She knew 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 in 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, they went all that span of time and did not see Raymond before he got sick. And they said, you know, Blanche, you visiting him the whole time in the hospital, the whole time he was there. And 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. So she's arrested, charged with first degree murder in the deaths of James Taylor and Raymond Reed, with assault with an assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill for the poisoning of Dwight Moore.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay, survived.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they're gonna deal with the rest of it if they have to later. And just these are the ones they can prove pretty definitively and these are the ones they were going for. And so yeah, she's held in the county jail for 14 months before trial.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Whoa.

[James Petregallo]

Just knitting. Yeah, making pudding. Dwight Moore said that if he had died, Blanche might have inherited as much as $75,000. But this, 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, fuck else in his mind, he's like, who would do that?

[Jimmy Whisman]

She didn't do it for money. She's a cold hearted bitch.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Very non confrontational.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he's basically saying that's exactly what it is. Rather than break up with someone, it's just easier to kill them, to not have the confrontation. Is he okay? I don't know. No, he's had a lot of arsenic and poisoning.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This arsenic has fucked his brain up.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. But actually also psychologically that might be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is it easier to dwell, to live with it like that?

[James Petregallo]

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. Yeah, you know, I mean, he's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He may have to rectify it with the. With those words, because otherwise he laid next to a murderer every goddamn night.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, and for money too. This makes her like, this is. This is a really generous view of things that she just had a quote to an inability to actually express her dissatisfaction with folks. With folks. That's 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. Yeah, yeah. This is almost folksy the way it's. This way. It's almost a folksy murder. Disfection, dissatisfaction with folks. I mean, how nice does he sound? You could burn his house down. He goes, well, I think he was 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 an operation.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I think he just wanted to see if the two by fours would stand up.

[James Petregallo]

You know what? I can understand the curiosity. He's a real kind man. Now the locals freak out about this shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

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 let their kids go outside.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Auntie's not invited to Thanksgiving anymore.

[James Petregallo]

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, no one's gonna break in my house. You had to be married to her. So people are almost like. It's almost like it's not a joke because they know that these poor guys died.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's very serious.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's very serious. But it's also like this fucking nice old lady just killed people. This is nuts. Right?

[Jimmy Whisman]

For almost no gain.

[James Petregallo]

That's what's crazy. She really didn't get much. So Rick Wolf, a clerk at the convenience store near the. 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 woman they talked to before. He said, quote, she wanted Auntie 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 excellent.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really goes great in potato soup.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh boy.

[James Petregallo]

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. I think she just really had ants in that visit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You should get it. It real fucking works.

[James Petregallo]

It's good stuff.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't think she meant anything by it. I think she meant it fucking works.

[James Petregallo]

I would think. Yeah, it kills shit whatever you put it on. He said, 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All questions.

[James Petregallo]

Some questions. She killed two husbands and her 20 year affair. And possibly her mother in law. Oh, and her father as well. Every man that's been around her, lived in a house with her, is dead or dying of arsenic poisoning.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It does lead you to at least two questions. What? One is how many? And the other is fucking why?

[James Petregallo]

Why?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Those are two great questions.

[James Petregallo]

And how stupid am I that didn't put those things together? Is the other thing. How dumb am I?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why don't I know?

[James Petregallo]

Why don't I think about things better? Another. The manager of a Burlington grill said everybody's talking about it. A lot think 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 concerning her father. They just can't believe it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay, wow.

[James Petregallo]

Then the victim's 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, 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. Wow. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Or the fucking devil.

[James Petregallo]

No, in between, there really isn't. She's either. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The only way.

[James Petregallo]

Thankfully, you're not the district attorney. Thankfully?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, you're the prosecutor's office.

[James Petregallo]

We need to see how many people this broad killed. That's what we need to see. I mean, I get that you don't want it popping up and 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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. In the event that she fucking doesn't

[James Petregallo]

get out to John Deere, let's go do this. Let's break out the fucking. The shovels, boy. Anyways, 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's a guy who exists in it. And this is the. Remember the person said, maybe she said someone was framing her. Well, in it, Garvin Thomas confesses to murdering Raymond Reed and to attempting to murder Dwight Moore. He said that he did it because. Why, Jimmy?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm in love with her.

[James Petregallo]

I'm in love with Blanche.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Couldn't help myself. You're seeing into her psyche now even deeper, right? 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 said here that it's not Garvin Thomas's handwriting. As a matter of fact, schur looks a lot like Blanche's. Is with the experts.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why did she do that?

[James Petregallo]

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 a narcissist needs.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And used a real man, a real person to throw him under the bus.

[James Petregallo]

Boss, it's crazy. So, yeah, he turns up, and the defense would love 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, Carolyn Hinshaw, that a man carrying a teddy bear and signing in as Garvin Thomas had tried to visit Blanche in jail trial, saying he'd done so much wrong in his life and hurt so many people that he wanted to start righting his wrongs. That's what this person said. Now, we don't know if this actually was Garvin Thomas, though. Could have been somebody acting like him. So the defense person here, the defense attorney said. They said that. Oh, I'm sorry. No, the person. Yeah, okay. Said that when her boss heard about the teddy bear visitor, they arranged a meeting with Garvin Thomas at which he had reportedly. He knew he was going to die and he knew Blanche hadn't done the things she was accused of and that he'd hurt 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 and dead anyway. That's the thing. Was there a guilt racked secret admirer trying to write his wrongs, carrying fucking teddy bears or whatever?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

The prosecution says she wrote the letter herself. That's what happened. We're not. Get the fuck out of here. But 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. So that's not great for her. The problem is too. So 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 dead acquaintances connected to Blanche over the years. And they get court orders to pull medical records on all of them. A huge list. 22.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a lot of people in your circle.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. Yeah, that's a shitload. So they were looking into that. Now one of the things she's known as the Black Widow Kill Killer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And we've, 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. 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 female.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

Serial killers. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's heavy.

[James Petregallo]

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. Children, husband, whatever. Yeah, they kill people they're close to, so. And also men are. They'll stalk and do all this shit and get. Women don't do that most of the time.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sexual element. That's so fast and gross.

[James Petregallo]

But even if it's not a sexual element to attack them. This is giving them some kind of

[Jimmy Whisman]

sexual satisfaction, sexual element involved in this. And he might come in his pants killing.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. Like btk.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So yeah, women though, they kill people they know. And for hundreds of years, poison has been their main murder weapon because a lot of times they'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 1 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. Women 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 of burned out on serial killing. It's rare for serial killers to be killing people into their 50s. That's rare. Rex Heuerman was a fucking.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That guy's different and he's huge. So he can dominate anybody.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. And he's a giant guy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

As you age, you get more docile

[James Petregallo]

because they tend to burn out on it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, yeah. You just don't have the energy.

[James Petregallo]

They might go out once in a while, but also as they age, they have more responsibilities, they're more tired, they have to fucking work all day.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. I don't think I can strangle anybody with my fucking arthritis.

[James Petregallo]

Carpal tunnel, you know, it's not good. It's hard. My strangling thumb's all fucked up. I can't get it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You're gonna survive. I'm sorry. Shit.

[James Petregallo]

I'm sorry. This is gonna go on for a while. I can't get a good grip.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Let me tell you, this literally hurts me more than it hurts you.

[James Petregallo]

It really does. It really, really does. So yeah, that's how it works. Now, pre trial opinions here, this is, is Lloyd Taylor. This is James Taylor's son. Brother.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Brother.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Nice little old church lady. All the evidence is there. And he says I still just don't. I can't see it out of her.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And that's why a lot of them get away with it for so long if they do. A lot of it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah. 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 know if she did it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Now, the sister said it seems kind of odd. All the rest of us lived to be a ripe old age. James was very young. We had a premonition. Something wasn't right. But we couldn't put our fingers on 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's awful.

[James Petregallo]

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 guy who she said wrote the letters, he's the actual killer. That's what he believes.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's unbelievable. It's absolutely unbelievable.

[James Petregallo]

He went on to say she was more willing to give to people than to receive from people. She didn't give arsenic. Yeah, that's the problem. She didn't believe in making her good deeds known. She was just a caring person.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. Now her sister said, one thing is certain. Behind the headlines is a person who is not capable of doing this. Here's a co worker. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Unless you are. And even then people hate you no matter where you work.

[James Petregallo]

Hate you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Somebody despises you.

[James Petregallo]

They will at least talk some shit if you're going now. Kroger had given her top ratings at her job and called her a good leader in reports and used her to train cashiers. But one of her coworkers said if you got on her bad side, she could be vindictive. Everyone thought she was two faced. She could be very underhanded.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's what a murderer is.

[James Petregallo]

That's the real deal right there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's the person that saw it.

[James Petregallo]

Ask the broad work in the checkout 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. Seemed 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 bitterness. He's the nicest man who's ever lived. He's just nice.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Did he recover fully?

[James Petregallo]

It can't be. Something's gotta be in his brain. This is horrible. 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 the nice thing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And I think he read the part.

[James Petregallo]

It's 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Well, you almost didn't.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. No, he 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 gonna end up like Corey Richards, having all of her fucking texts going. They're gonna pay for what they did to me. That judge and how dare he? And make it worse for herself. This is bad.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Speaking in Carney with her mom.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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.

[James Petregallo]

That's it? That's all you can do?

[Jimmy Whisman]

You can't get on the fucking news and chirp.

[James Petregallo]

Nope, never gonna look good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Ask Chris Watts how that worked out.

[James Petregallo]

Real well. And don't write a book about it either. Yeah, it's 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

Okay, that's so fucked up. It's fucking dark, right?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't like that at All.

[James Petregallo]

I don't like it. It sounds like a woman who comes into death row with cookies and doilies every couple days to keep their spirits up.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Hello, boys.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Draws another notch on the wall.

[James Petregallo]

I don't care what they did. They're nice boys to me now. That's all I care about. October 1990, Raymond Reed murder trial. Okay, now, the thing is, Blanche lived in Alamance County. Reed was poisoned in Alamance County. But there was other shit. He technically died at the North Carolina Baptist Hospital, which is in Forsyth County. So there's a venue struggle here, there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And he was poisoned at the Forsyth

[James Petregallo]

one, right in that hospital at the end there. That's where he died. So that's where she's gonna have to stand trial here. So they take everybody from there, the judge and everything else, and bring them over to that county. And they said there was suffocating publicity back there, but of course there was. It's everywhere. 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 is known as the poisoning granny. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is shocking that she's gonna try to fight this. Shocking.

[James Petregallo]

Well, they did a study. The investigator survey found that 49 out of 50 people polled had followed her case. One guy, 36, had formed an opinion. And 31 of those opinions were, she's guilty. So a tough one for a jury there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

62% think you're a fucking asshole.

[James Petregallo]

They think you're a dick. Two of them said that she was guilty and that they should, quote, fry the woman that was on their thing. And there was even a radio station in Asheboro, wkrrfm, that kept playing a song calling Blanche a black widow spider. Wow. So 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 gonna 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 gonna hear. And every one of the 12 jurors seated swore they had formed no opinion and could decide on evidence alone. Out of 110 prospective jurors screened, 46 were dismissed for already deciding she was guilty. Not good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They came to the interviews with a torch and a pitchfork.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they just showed up. Well, we're Here, go on, let her out in the street. We'll take care of it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sound like this now?

[James Petregallo]

Should I wait till we find her guilty or what?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Good.

[James Petregallo]

Gross. There is 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 the defense gets to see everything, not just the things they have to see legally for discovery. Then the case moved to Forsyth and that guy said, I'm not doing that. That's what that guy told you? That ain't what I'm doing. I'll give you what I have to give you legally and not a shred fucking more. You can eat shit. 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? That's it. It. So this is another thing. Now, during all of this, while she was in jail, Raymond Reed's 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 and would have stopped and he would have lived, essentially. So it's like Dexter over here, Remember 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 Reid'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. They thought they must have given it to her and she threw it out, out. But then it comes out through everything in the discovery that it got lost at the hospital, which was even fucking worse. There's a long standing rule in American courts that basically, while the defendant is hiding the wrongdoing, 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. Now in the civil case, the Fifth Amendment protections that shield a criminal defendant aren't there there anymore. It's not the same. A civil case, you don't have rights, you don't have constitutional rights in a civil case. That's why O.J. had to do those depositions and testify and all that shit in the civil case, because he had no choice. So under a deal between the Forsyth 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 sorts of stuff.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Stuff.

[James Petregallo]

The defense said, okay, 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 poison 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay?

[James Petregallo]

You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

So they were gonna 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.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We just know that he's poisoned and she's the only one close to him.

[James Petregallo]

That's exactly right. But she's wanting. She thinks that would be reasonable doubt. If they don't know exactly when. And maybe she wasn't there, but there's no moment to pinpoint. It's the whole goddamn almost a year that went on here. So basically, prosecution's case is Blanche fed Reed 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. There's also Rule 404 thing here, which is the judge let the state tell the jury about the other poisoning. It's prior bad acts. That's normally. That's the 404 deal. Under North Carolina's Rule 404, 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, then you can do that. So the court found Blanche's pattern was a signature. Therefore it's allowed in. So now they can talk about the others. They can bring Dwight on the stand saying, she was poisoning me while I was alive.

[Jimmy Whisman]

When it's an mo.

[James Petregallo]

When it's an MO Exactly. And in each case, financial motive and all of that. And also they said knowledge and access to Auntie Ant. Arsenic delivered in 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 now, the judge said he kept out these specific arsenic levels found in James Taylor's or found in Moore's body. But the death of James Taylor, and that was in her own father. I'm sorry, they left out P.D. kaiser's arsenic levels.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

But James Taylor and Dwight Moore, all of that comes in.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Secret agent man. What is that? What's that?

[James Petregallo]

That song's ruined Jones or something.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, it was in a comedy, though.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, it's in a million comedies. Austin Powers. It was all over that. Yeah. When I was a kid, I always thought it was Asian.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Secret Asian man.

[James Petregallo]

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. I was just like, whatever. I don't know. Some guy doesn't want everybody to know he's Asian or something. That's what I thought the song meant. I had no fucking idea because I was.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's pretty obvious, guys. Why is everybody.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, what, are we kidding me here?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why is everybody so snowed around here?

[James Petregallo]

How is this a secret? I don't get it. It's a bad secret. So then there's Nurse Wanda Moss. She's a very damaging witness here. She described Reid being fed through a narrow Dobhoff tube that clogged easily and how the nurses cleared it by syringing Coca Cola through it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

Like a truck engine to get the shit off. The Coke sat unattended in the room, and the syringes were in an unlocked closet right next to the Coke.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She may have done it with that.

[James Petregallo]

Just gonna put it right in his feeding tube.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Good Lord.

[James Petregallo]

Blanche was frequently present for all of it. Also, they said, what did you see her bring from home? Peanut butter milkshakes, banana pudding, tomato pudding, tomato pudding. The fuck is that?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't even know how you do that.

[James Petregallo]

That sounds like ketchup.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Tomato pudding that goes on hot dogs.

[James Petregallo]

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 Blanche.

[Jimmy Whisman]

A bunch of soft shit that dissolves powder very easily.

[James Petregallo]

That's what he had.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yep, yep.

[James Petregallo]

And could be put in a tube.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Also this nurse said she never saw anyone but Blanche bring him food or feed him. Uh, oh, as well. Lisa Hutchins, the lead ICU nurse, said that on October 1, when he was feeling good, she saw Blanche feeding him banana pudding and that two days later he was begging her to not let him die.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

Steven Reed, the son, talked about my father's skin splitting in 24 hours after eating a breakfast that Blanche prepared for him. That's crazy. The treating physicians walked 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. 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 Bland. Then they bring up the old good Reverend Dwight Moore up on the stand and sit him down. And the lead prosecutor, Janet Branch. She'll be Janet Downing later. Keep him. Remember that because 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. And then after about 30 seconds, she just stood up and fled the courtroom room. She couldn't continue. The prosecutor, she just started crying out of nowhere, out of nowhere 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 polled 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Maybe I don't know what the fuck that is.

[James Petregallo]

She broke up with her boyfriend yesterday. I don't fucking know. Yeah, we don't know what's going on. And they went, all right. Case continues, 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Hell yeah.

[James Petregallo]

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, right. 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 that's ascot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Acting much older than she is. And she denied everything, all the physical stuff. She said that while Reid 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. What the fuck? People swore that they watched her spoon feed him. Not just giving him shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And she says not. No.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. She denied having anything to do with Reid'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 so did the nurses. It's crazy. She admitted she'd heard of Auntie Aunt, but never bought it. Never tried to buy it and never recommended it to anyone. Even though several people say the opposite.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She never said good stuff, Maynard.

[James Petregallo]

Never. Never. Yep. And then she flatly denied poisoning everybody. So she just went against all the evidence and said no.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nuh.

[James Petregallo]

Nuh. In closing, the prosecutor said that he only needs to prove reasonable explanation for a man dying of repeated arsenic doses 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Now the defense said, come on. I mean, yeah, look at her. She's an old lady and stuff.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nah, that's what they said.

[James Petregallo]

They 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?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Maybe there's a rogue nurse in these hospitals. You've heard of that a million times.

[James Petregallo]

It's been both the hospitals, so maybe it is. And then what about James Taylor and his mom though? And her dad? That's the other problem.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Rogue nurse.

[James Petregallo]

Rogue nurse came, broke in the house on Thanksgiving, poison the old lady. Her dad molested her too. That's what happened. Rogue nurse.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Rogue nurse, man.

[James Petregallo]

Rogue nurse. Now the verdict comes in here. Now the jury does not have the option of a lesser charge.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's only. Margaret.

[James Petregallo]

First degree murder. Because second degree murder, you can't accidentally administer arsenic for a year to somebody. There's no. It's either premeditated and cold blooded or not at all.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh boy.

[James Petregallo]

So there's a lot. She is found guilty of first degree murder.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Uh huh.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. Now during sentencing, by the way, death penalty on the table.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They're gonna roast grandma.

[James Petregallo]

That's a tough one for a little old lady sitting there. And she. That's to point at her and go. We're gonna kill.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fucking nice brooch bitch.

[James Petregallo]

We're gonna kill Aunt Grandma over here. Because I don't know which one she is. So the jury found two aggravating circumstances. The murder was committed for monetary gain. The insurance, the estate, basically. And she steered her husband, boyfriend into signing a will with a nod. And two, the murders were especially heinous, atrocious or cruel. Which I couldn't agree more. Those are brutal.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So fucked up.

[James Petregallo]

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 firefight. Hold on, let me get these big church glasses off. I'm gonna start bucking shots at the cops. And that she'd shown concern and kindness for others in her community.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay. So the mitigating is. Look, I thought I could get away with it. That's what they just said.

[James Petregallo]

That's it. Mitigating circumstances is. Come on. She's a nice lady.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not me. They're not gonna believe it.

[James Petregallo]

I'm. Look at her. Yep. In the prosecution in closing said that Reid's murder quote set a new standard for cruelty in the history of this country and that Blanche deserves the ultimate penalty. This is ten months of torture. This is. Find me another murder case where someone tortures someone for 10 months.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

Good luck. It's hard keeping him on the edge of death and back and forth. This is fucking crazy. This is like a Saw movie.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She thought she gave him enough and then they made it out and she thought she gave him enough every time. She didn't think that. She was just slow. I think she thought she was giving him enough every time.

[James Petregallo]

I think she wanted it to mimic.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

67 times the lethal dose.

[James Petregallo]

James, That's a lot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She thought she gave him enough.

[James Petregallo]

But that's what built up too. That builds up in there. So that's. I think so. That's the thing. But maybe that's what it is. Maybe she kept going. Damn. Keep trying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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.

[James Petregallo]

I only say I think she knew what she was doing this way. Cause she did it twice this way. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I think she's not the first one to kill him.

[James Petregallo]

She was still doing it the same way to the Moore guy while he was in the hospital. She likes to drag it on over months because it worked the first time. But. I don't know. You could be right. I'm not sure. Either way, you, ma'. Am. You, ma' am may fuck off. Death by lethal injection. Come on, everybody. Let's kill Grandma. Can't they just.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm surprised. Death by Annie.

[James Petregallo]

A death by Running over by a reindeer. What are we talking about? This is wild. So the state drops the remaining charges. James Taylor's murder, Dwight Moore's assault. Because, let's face it, she's gonna 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fucking. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

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 doting grandmother.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I smell an Oscar.

[James Petregallo]

And the suspect who survived is an ordained minister. This is fucking. This is some TV shit right here. 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 murderer. I would say. 1993, the journalist Jim Schutz published a book on the case called Preacher's Girl. And. And before the trial is even over, they buy the film rights from this guy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Holy shit.

[James Petregallo]

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 know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't think she's ever been a Christian.

[James Petregallo]

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. I almost called it New Carolina. The North Carolina Supreme Court hears 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 Murders. 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 gonna play Blanche?

[Jimmy Whisman]

The lady from Murder, She Wrote?

[James Petregallo]

No, no.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Angela Lansbury.

[James Petregallo]

Elizabeth Montgomery.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Who the fuck is that?

[James Petregallo]

Samantha from Bewitched?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Are you kidding me?

[James Petregallo]

I swear to God, Samantha, with her wiggly nose, she's gonna fucking do it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wigglenose is a murderess.

[James Petregallo]

She's a murderess. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Don't you dare.

[James Petregallo]

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 Clennon, who was on 30 something. Remember? That's a boring ass show. 30 something in the 80s there you get cast as Dwight and Blanche. Montgomery says, Blanche has this vulnerability that made people forget what she has done. Okay. Also, her sense of herself helped me a lot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Lot.

[James Petregallo]

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. What drives me nuts about things like this though. As 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, Samantha said that.

[James Petregallo]

Samantha said that. And she said all this stuff could have been 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. Yeah, no shit. The other actor, the guy who plays Dwight, said. Yeah, I think the fictional Dwight appeared to me to be a man of goodwill and intelligence and good intentions who was led around by his libido, run around by his dick. Yeah, 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. They said. Although the movie deals with serious themes such as a child abuse and murder, Montgomery and Clennan also believe it has a sense of humor. It's hilarious. Clennon 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 the behavior of Blanche Moore. Yeah, we know. We just did it. It works great.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Three hours worth, seven episodes. Bah.

[James Petregallo]

It's perfect. Behavior of the Blanche Moore character and the responses of people around her. How did she get away with this for so long? And 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 hypocrisy. Yeah, they're talking about Jesus and the interpretations of the Bible. Meanwhile their heads are filled with lustful notions. Yes, that's how it works.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Stirring up drinks and blowing everybody.

[James Petregallo]

Blowing everybody. Elizabeth Montgomery said, I think there should be a life sentence without parole. I think a life in prison is far worse than the death penalty. Both actors say they're opposed to the death penalty. Clemens says, I feel deeply the death penalty is wrong and that it degrades society to the level of the murderer. It troubles me to think that this entertainment could tip the scales one way or another in terms of politics, public opinion against Blanche Moore. This is coming out while this is still going on. 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 3, 1993, NBC airs Black Widow Murders the Blanche Taylor Story during sweeps month.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Dang. They're trying to

[James Petregallo]

rating and in one of the reviews for it at the time, someone says in the paper in ground for TV form, the meaty NC Arsenic tale is one more sweeps week Turkey. In other words, they just slap together a pile of shit and put it out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

19. Trying to get a Daytime Emmy.

[James Petregallo]

Trying to get something. Trying to get back into an acting career. By the way, she died only a couple years later. Elizabeth, does this say, 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. Yeah, that they let in the other shit. The defense argued that the state never directly linked Blanche to the other crimes. So why should a jury trying her for Reid hear 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 planned motive, opportunity, and identity. So keep on keeping on, Grandma.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

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. He said, make of it what you will. Basically, that's what it is. He said, it's hard to.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Rotisserie grandma.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I'm saying. He said Blanche's daughter, Cindy, had spoken publicly over the years about this thing, and he felt bad about it. 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

But this is real, because now she's in her 70s, too, so she survived chemotherapy and radiation.

[Jimmy Whisman]

In prison.

[James Petregallo]

In prison. So that's not even good shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Chemo. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

In 2009, North Carolina passed the Racial justice act, which let death row inmates challenge their sentences using statistical evidence of racial bias and jury selection. Because they found out that's a huge deal if you look into it, just not politically 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. You are the least tainted person who's ever existed on death row.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's not because you're white, and it's

[James Petregallo]

not because you're a grandma or anything there. Of course, the governor in 2013 repealed the Racial justice act because. Because, you know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Yeah. That was. I don't know. I'm not gonna get into it. Yeah. Think about that time period and what came from it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

Think about what came from that time period.

[Jimmy Whisman]

2013 to 2000. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The lady that was crying.

[James Petregallo]

No, no, no, no. Her attorney, the prosecutor, was the lady who was Crying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, okay. All right.

[James Petregallo]

Her attorney, he reportedly also had a history of psychological problems.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Allegedly stole her money.

[James Petregallo]

Then member Janet Branch Downing, the crying prosecutor.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Whoa.

[James Petregallo]

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 Rett syndrome. Rett, which is a horrible neurological disorder that 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 10, 2015, on Interstate 485 in Charlotte.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It.

[James Petregallo]

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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Holy.

[James Petregallo]

She got out and just wandered into the center lane of the interstate and stood there and got hit by a car.

[Jimmy Whisman]

In hindsight, I feel like there was a big red flag being waved.

[James Petregallo]

You want to talk about a big red flag? The night before, a neighbor said she came to his door asking for. For, quote, a gun or razor blades. One or the other.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Do you happen to have suicide tools?

[James Petregallo]

Anything made of metal I could kill myself with, please, My God. Saying she told him she'd hit rock bottom and she was done. Do you have a gun or some blades I could use?

[Jimmy Whisman]

And he was like, no, I don't have those either. Well, then I.75 that way.

[James Petregallo]

What, that's it? So the medical examiner ruled it a suicide. She's 62 years old. It's fucking horrible.

[Jimmy Whisman]

How old?

[James Petregallo]

She was 62 when that happened.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

So North Carolina hasn't executed anybody since 2006. There's lethal injection protocols. They're fighting over the Racial justice act, the role of physicians who say that we shouldn't be doing this, do no harm. I'm killing a guy. Can't do that. So North Carolina, in 2025, though, passed, passed Arena's law, I R Y N A Arenas law, named after a young woman murdered in another high profile case, and signed it into effect. The law authorizes alternative execution methods, including firing squad and the electric chair. Most relevant. So we're just going backwards in time? That's barbaric. Why don't we inject them? It's a lot more. And then we go, we can't get the drugs. Well, fuck it. Run him over with a truck. Then it's like, what are we doing

[Jimmy Whisman]

across the median of the freeway?

[James Petregallo]

Fuck, man. So it pushes them to compress capital appeals into a roughly two year window to Clear the path 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 it is. So Blanche right now is 93 years old and on fucking death row. And if it's up to them, they want to get all this through so they can execute her when she's like 96. 6 Can you little shaky woman there. Come on, grandma, let's get up here. They're going to have to help her into the chair. Wearing velcro shoes and. Are you kidding me?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know.

[James Petregallo]

For a walker with tennis balls on it. Coming up to the death row.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know if her heart could stand being tied down to a country.

[James Petregallo]

What the Are we. What are we doing?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, she's already. Never mind. She's. She's gone.

[James Petregallo]

Let's just make her. If you hit 90, we take you off death row. We're not gonna murder a 93 year old person. That's insane. I don't care what they did.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She's done for 20, 30 years. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

If Ted Bundy was 93, we wouldn't take his rickety ass and sit him in a chair. Just hang out. Ted, I think the raping days are done.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I think every college girl in the country could take him now.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean. I think we're all safe.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He might. He might have a coronary just seeing a pair of tits at that point.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, you could kill him with that. Just put him in the chair and then on the viewing window, just have a chick flash.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Have the tripods pull them all out.

[James Petregallo]

That's it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Explode his fucking heart.

[James Petregallo]

He comes in his pants and dies right then we're gonna kill grandma. Everybody. Come on.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's crazy.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. So in the media here in 1993, that author wrote a book. The author found evidence that seemed to indicate that Moore 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 down. 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 and her crimes. They were also portrayed on evil lives here and snapped, of course, because a woman killed somebody. So it's gotta be 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 028-8088.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And they are sharpening all kinds of stuff to stab her with.

[James Petregallo]

I will tell you what. So there you go everybody. That, 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She got next to nothing in benefit of this.

[James Petregallo]

Oh yeah, really? Not a lot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

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. It helps tremendously. Thank you for doing that because this takes a lot of work and that really doesn't. So please do that. It makes it easier. Shut upandgivemerder.com is where you go for everything. Small town 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 cult. 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. 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 shows start back up again. We take the summer off September 18, back at the Pabst in Milwaukee, which is one of our favorite places to be. The Pabst. We love it, love that whole place. Even the green room is great. Place is great. The staff is great. And Robin's the best. And that is almost gone, those tickets. So if you want to go to that, get those now. Minneapolis, the next night, September 19th, State Theater. You guys need to catch up to Milwaukee, everybody. Don't let them punk you. I mean, 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 Tarrytown, November 13th, Boston, November 14th. Those Tarrytown ones are almost gone. Get those now if you want them. So do that. ShutUpAndGiveMerder.com, also follow on social media. We are AllTownMurder on Instagram, SmallTown Pot on Facebook. So hang out with us there. Definitely get Patreon, patreon.combest/crimeinsports is where you get all of the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above, you are going to get every. Every goddamn thing that we put out. First of all, as soon as you subscribe, you're gonna get hundreds of back bonus episodes. So many, almost 400. And then you get new ones every other week. One crime and sports, one small town murder this week. No different for crime and sports. Hostage situations, all different weird ones. And how they work out. Cause they're crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Samuel L. Jackson one.

[James Petregallo]

Well, we might. You never know. Then for small town murder we did the crash already. Based on your poll, it's gonna be Corey Richens Part 3. 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 prisoner dating games.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Can't wait.

[James Petregallo]

Damn. Patreon. Right now. Patreon.com CrimeInSports is where you get all of that. And you also get everything we put out. Crime and 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 goddamn now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This week's executive producer, Gary Howard. He's in Jacksonville, Florida. And Happy hours in Splendora, Texas. Look at the two of you crisscrossing the south, missing back and forth paper magic trader also. Thank you so much.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You're amazing. You're the best. Thank you. Other producers this week. Winnie Gruntsy farts. And I don't know what that means, but happy birthday, Winnie.

[James Petregallo]

She farts.

[Jimmy Whisman]

When she grunts, she pushes hard. Heidi Griffin, Liz Vasquez, Peyton Meadows, Janice Hill, Melissa Magett, Jonathan Phipps and Bill McClellan in Scotland. It's been a minute since we heard from him. He had a kid like 35 years ago when we first started this.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, really. The kid just graduated law school.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Stacy Winder, Ashley Clause Percival with no last name. Cora Jean Jasik or Jazzik. Renee Madsen Marsden. That's it. Sarah Warner, Zoe with no last name. Kerry Thompson, Frank Janice Sadoris Trober Troffer Trough perhaps Laugh. That's how it's spelled. T R A U. Alyssa Kirchberg tra. I am Mass Holio Dex Machine Joshua Kbisny Kubisny Ann Mitchell, Tina with no last name. Nick Rigel Regal, Dustin Stewart, Ann Penner sky with no last name. Calissa Oberhelman Oberhelman.

[James Petregallo]

Oberhelman.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Kalisa. Calissa. That's a too tough name. All right. Amanda Kelly. Alana McKeague. Matt with no last name. Sean Benoit or Ben Benoit.

[James Petregallo]

Benoit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Bethany Duvall. Trevor Golden. Law of Leaves. Jonah. German or German Or Hermann.

[James Petregallo]

Good for you, Joe.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jessica Ramsey. Becky Crosby. Kathy with no last name. Keith Law. Danny Kaiser. Gloria Torres. Jessica Freeman. Dave Wilton. Olga Burgowski. Rachel Dawn. Dana Nelder. Jennifer Vonita. Vonida. Caddy. Katie. It's Katie. Probably with two T's. Like Mean Girls. Wilson. Stinky with no last name. Renee Wapsock. Pawani. Pawini.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, watch her.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Pawini. Pa. Yep. Renee. I'm blowing it. Amanda Ross. Jamie Hedlund. Leah. Go forth. Mudrone. Modron. Mudron. Ashley with no last name. Steve Osborne. Stephanie with no last name name. Tattle Turtle. Melissa. Mariska. Mariska Summers. Mariska Summers. Sophie M. Emily Hayes. Victoria. Brook. Kenny with no Last name. Megan 2.0. Whitney Connor. Amanda W. Stacy Lawson. Frank Norenbrock. Candice Bishop. Stephanie Sloan. Bridget Grimm. David. David Mendoza. David Mendoza. Jen Myers. Kristen Henson. Stephanie with no last name. Janelle Bassett. Legume. Wolf. Those are beans. Rachel Montgomery. Cedar roop or Rup. Sidar. Cedar. Rup. It's cedar. It's spelled cedar.

[James Petregallo]

Cedar.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Ebony or Ebone. Gregory.

[James Petregallo]

It's probably ebony.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right?

[James Petregallo]

Sup. Bruh. Ebone.

[Jimmy Whisman]

John with no last name. Trisha Downs. Jen Jones. Oh, how about that? Jennifer Jones. Jenny Jones. J. Stro. Ben Womack. Veronica with no last name. Diana Hart. Commissioner. Red. Kt. The letters K and T. Candice Lejeune. Steph. Like the camp.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, like the camp with the cancer water. That's not good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Steph Martin. Caitlin Simpson. Kerry. Tangy. Tangy. Spinsani Spence. What is that? Spinsane. Mike Coit. Like us.

[James Petregallo]

Our prices are spinsane. Everybody.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Joe with no last name. Sally. Bottle Bodle. Don Honnebach. Erica with no last name. Don Cedroni. Sedrone. Sedrone. Larry Heard. That's so easy. Steven Creamer. That's gross. Kathy Klein. Lindsey. Batman. I think it is Batman. Not Bateman. Paige. Christian. Like Bale, who also played Batman. Cassidy Smith. Otto BB 340. Caleb Daniels. Nope, that's Daniels. Alexa Davis. Chrissy with no last name. Kayla with no last name.

[James Petregallo]

David Wachis. In there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It has been Broughton, Derek Lee. Jonathan Dumber. Really? Mary Cecilizlischeck. Cecil Seziel's check.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Cecil. Check. Okay. Christopher Walchilly. Walcheley. Walchley. Walchi. Walchley. Tracy. That's not Rebecca. What? Tracy Lahockey. That's why. Cynthia Fry, Javon Apple Liner A Polyner Joseph Killen M.H. laurie. John S. Krista Day. Kathy with no last name Michelle Viata. Matt with no last name. Jennifer with no last name name. Shalei Emmert. Doris Rogers, Kayla Marquardt, Cherie Chance, Hannah with no last name Megan Bazone Bazzoni. Melania. No, that's Melanie. No, that is Melania Stralele. Strahil. Jenna Grundle. What?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, very nice.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's not good. Slip TV drummer guy Hannah. Heather. Heather Glarizio. Sarah Anderson. Brandy Williams. Maxandra Miles. Pleasure man. Rachel Claudel, Claudle, April Mercedes, Ida Morris, Laura with no last name Cheryl Norquay. Alex the Great. And then all of our patrons that do this for us. You're the best.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you. Thank you everybody, so, 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.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Shout out to the shows, buying Patreon, just supporting like crazy.

[James Petregallo]

You guys are listening, listening, telling people about it, post 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 has 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. Hey, everybody. Listening to small town murder out there. Hi.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Hello.

[James Petregallo]

Good to see you out there. I'm here with Jimmy too. And this is an ad, but not an ad for a product. This is an ad for tour dates.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yes.

[James Petregallo]

Come see a live show. The 2026 Tour. All the tickets are for sale right now. Starting out with February 21st in Nashville, March 6th in Durham, March 7th in Atlanta. Phoenix is sold out. We do have tickets though, to your stupid opinions. On 21 March, Salt Lake City sold out. Denver has tickets. Be there on May 2. May 29, Buffalo, sold out. Royal Oak, Michigan. May 30, we have September 18, Milwaukee. September 19, Minneapolis. October 3 in Dallas. October 16 and 16, Jose. October 17 in Sacramento. November 13 in Tarrytown. November 14 in Boston. Come see us. The live shows are spectacular. Come join all of the other STM people. You're going to meet so many people. You're going to have fun, make some new friends like crazy. And make some new friends. Come out and see us. Shut upandgivemerder.com is where you go for those tickets. Get them right now, while they're hot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

See you on the road.