cover image Bodies of Evidence: The True Story of Judias Buenoano, Florida's Serial Murderess

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

Chris Anderson. Carol Publishing Corporation, $18.95 (319pp) ISBN 978-0-8184-0542-6

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