Bodies of Evidence: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Chilling Serial Murderess... from Crime Scene to Courtroom to Electric Chair

by Chris Anderson and Sharon McGehee

Book Overview

This volume profiles the life and crimes of convicted serial killer Judias Buenoano, the Florida woman on death row for the murders of several men.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312928068
• ISBN13: 9780312928063
• Release Date: April 1992
• Publisher: St. Martin's True Crime
• Length: 371 Pages
• Weight: 0.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Arsenic and an Old Face

As presented by authors Chris Anderson and Sharon McGehee in their true crime saga, BODIES OF EVIDENCE, a remarkably physically unattractive Florida woman named Judias "Judi" Goodyear began her career of poisoning the men in her life with arsenic in 1971. Her initial victim was her husband James, and her windfall from his murder was around $25,000. While there is no indication that Judi particularly disliked her victims, she clearly liked money better. Her next killing was that of Billy Ray Morris, her live in boyfriend, and by this time she was forging her victims'names to insurance policy applications and substantially increasing her payoffs. Goodyear although intelligent, cold, and cunning was also a little goofy and somewhere along the line, for reason that are unclear to me, she changed her three children's and her surnames to Buenoano, the Spanish equivalent of Goodyear. Money was predictably getting tight as the family was living well from the insurance proceeds and denying themselves nothing, so Judi needed to strike again. This time her victim was her oldest son, 20-year-old Michael, who had always had behavior issues and who was a source of embarrassment to the perfect image Judi liked to present. Unfortunately, he didn't die from the poisoning, which merely rendered him severely disabled, so Judi and her son James had to finish him off by dumping him out of a canoe, his leg braces firmly attached, and drowning him, thereby securing more cash from the splash. Her final intended victim was her boyfriend, John Gentry. Gentry was smart enough to stop taking the arsenic laden capsules Judi gave him daily as vitamins, and though he was hospitalized, he did not die, which irritated Judi. So she arranged to have Gentry's car dynamited. Miraculously, Gentry lived, which was the beginning of Judi's end. The rest of the book deals, interestingly and without superfluous and boring detail, with Judi's three trials and her eventual sentencing. Goodyear/Buenano's story is fascinating and the authors move the story along well providing all of the necessary information, while not feeling the need to present every tedious available scrap. For example, in the trial segments, they summarize information when possible. And the research in BOE is outstanding. While the writing is for the most part pretty good, there were enough substandard instances that I feel some are worth mentioning. First, the authors occasionally use the omniscient style of writing, which I heartily dislike, to bring drama to a story that already has plenty: "Detective Ted Chamberlain clicked his way down the shiny tiled lobby of the intensive care unit..." with "Detective Rick Steele striding briskly slightly behind him." This is no more than fabricated hooshwah. The authors could and should have simply had them walking, or just as well, not mentioned it at all. As for Chamberlain, who was clearly a main source of information, there is enough hero worship involved to become irrita