Judi became the first woman to be executed in the electric chair in America since Rhonda Belle Martin was executed in Alabama on October 11, 1957.
She was also the first woman to be executed in Florida since 1848, when a slave girl named Celia was hanged for battering her master to death.
Her execution on March 30, 1998, was a relatively low-key affair, unlike those of the two women who had preceded her to the death chamber (Velma Barfield and Karla Faye Tucker).
She was not an especially attractive 54-year-old, and her execution was the third in a series of four that Florida carried out in quick succession that spring.
It did not attract the media attention that Karla Faye Tucker’s execution had.
Early Days
Like so many of the other criminals discussed in these pages, she had a difficult childhood.
She was born Judias Welty in Quanah, Texas, on April 4, 1943, the daughter of a farm laborer. She was of Latina ethnic background.
Apparently, Judi described her mother as a member of a non-existent Mesquite Apache tribe, although they were not close.
Her mother (also named Judias) died of tuberculosis when Judi was 4 years old, and the family was parted.
Judi and her infant brother, Robert, were sent to live with their grandparents, while two older children were put up for adoption.
Her father remarried and took Judi and Robert to live with his new wife in Roswell, New Mexico.
Judi was miserable there and claimed that both her father and stepmother abused her.
Allegedly, she was beaten, starved, and forced to work long hours as a virtual slave—hardly an ideal upbringing for an adolescent girl.
Her family eventually pushed her too far, and at the age of 14, she was sentenced to two months in prison for attacking them and her two stepbrothers.
After she was released, she chose to go to a reform school rather than back to her abusive family and attended Foothills High School in Albuquerque, from where she graduated in 1959 at age 16.
She had, not surprisingly, a poor view of her family and is reported to have said of her brother Robert:
“I wouldn’t spit down his throat if his guts were on fire.”
Her first job came in 1960 when she was employed as a nursing assistant in Roswell under the assumed name of Anna Schultz.
In 1961, she gave birth to an illegitimate son whom she christened Michael Schultz. She refused to confirm rumors that his father was a pilot from the nearby USAF base.
A Life of Crime
She married for the first time on January 21, 1962, to James Goodyear, who was an Air Force officer.
Judi gave birth to their first child, James Jr., on January 16, 1966. James Goodyear adopted Michael.
In 1967, they had a daughter, Kimberley, and were now living in Orlando, Florida.
In 1968, Judi opened her first business—the Conway Acres Child Care Center in Orlando—with the financial backing of her husband.
James Goodyear Sr. had done a tour of duty in Vietnam and, three months after his return home, was admitted to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Orlando suffering from mysterious symptoms.
He died on September 15, 1971, and Judi cashed in his three life insurance policies.
Towards the end of that same year, Judi suffered a house fire at her home, for which she received a further $90,000 from the insurers.
Judi soon found a new boyfriend in the shape of Bobby Joe Morris, who lived in Pensacola, and with whom she moved in in 1972.
Her new life was marred by her son Michael, who was disruptive at school and of low intelligence. She was able to get him into residential foster care for a time.
Bobby Morris moved to Trinidad, Colorado, in 1977, and Judi and her family (including Michael) joined him there a little later.
Before she left Pensacola, however, she was the victim of another house fire, which brought another insurance payout.
Soon after she moved to Colorado, Bobby Joe became ill and was admitted to hospital on January 4, 1978.
Again, the cause was a mystery to his doctors, and he was soon discharged.
Two days after he went home, he collapsed and was taken back to the hospital where he died on January 21 of that year.
Once again, Judi benefited from the insurance policies taken out on his life.
His family, however, suspected that Bobby Joe had been murdered and that he was not the only victim.
In 1974, Judi and Bobby Joe had been visiting Bobby Joe’s hometown of Brewton, Alabama, where a man from Florida had been found dead in a motel room.
The local police received an anonymous phone call, traced to a local pay phone, which led them to the motel room where the dead body of a man was found, shot in the chest and with his throat cut.
It is claimed that Bobby Joe’s mother overheard Judi saying:
“The son of a bitch shouldn’t have come up here in the first place. He knew if he came up here he was gonna die.”
Bobby Joe confessed to his part in this killing on his deathbed.
However, at the time, the police could find no fingerprints inside the room and no bullet was recovered from the corpse, so they did not have enough evidence to bring charges.
On May 3, 1978, Judi legally changed her surname and that of her children to Buenoano, the Spanish equivalent of Goodyear, in an apparent tribute to her late husband.
She and her family moved back to Pensacola.
Michael’s Decline and Death
Michael Buenoano, as he had now become, had done badly at school and joined the army in June 1979. He was based in Georgia.
He soon started to show signs of illness and was diagnosed as suffering from arsenic poisoning, which rapidly affected his upper and lower limbs.
He was given heavy metal leg braces in the military hospital and, on discharge into the care of his mother, was unable to walk or use his hands.
On May 13, 1980, Judi took Michael and his younger brother, James, canoeing on the East River.
Sadly, the canoe capsized.
James and Judi were able to get out from under the upturned canoe, but Michael, weighed down by the heavy braces, didn’t stand a chance and drowned.
The police accepted Judi’s account of what happened, but the army investigators were not so easily taken in.
Judi received $20,000 from Michael’s military life insurance, but sheriff’s officers began taking interest in the case when it was discovered that there were two other policies on Michael’s life.
It was suggested by handwriting experts that Michael’s signature on the insurance applications may have been forged.
Attempted Murder of John Gentry II
After Michael’s death, Judi opened a beauty salon in Gulf Breeze and began seeing a Pensacola businessman named John Gentry II.
She told John Gentry that she had various (bogus) qualifications and had worked as a senior nurse in Florida.
She persuaded him that they should take out life insurance policies on each other in October 1982, later increasing the size of the one on him to $500,000.
She also persuaded him to take vitamin capsules which made him feel nauseous and dizzy.
When he complained of these effects, Judi allegedly told him to double the dose.
On June 25, 1983, Judi announced she was pregnant, and John went out to get some champagne to celebrate.
When he started his car, a bomb exploded, and he was seriously injured as a result.
Four days later, he was well enough to answer questions from the police, which led them to examine Judi’s background in minute detail.
Many inconsistencies between what John thought was the case and what the police found to be reality emerged.
Judi had no medical qualifications, she was not pregnant, and had booked a cruise for herself and her children.
She had also recently been telling her friends that John had a terminal illness.
Several of the alleged vitamin capsules were recovered and found to contain arsenic.
At this stage, however, there wasn’t sufficient evidence to charge Judi with attempted murder.
A later search of Judi’s house revealed wire and tape in her bedroom which matched the remains from the bomb in John’s car.
Later, the police also traced the source of the dynamite and were able to link Judi through telephone records.
She was duly arrested and bailed on the charge of attempted murder of John Gentry.
On January 11, 1984, she was arrested again and charged with first-degree murder in respect of Michael’s death.
Exhumations and Trial
In February, the body of Bobby Joe Morris was exhumed, and arsenic was found.
It was also found in the body of James Goodyear, who was exhumed in March of that year.
Judi was tried separately for each murder and for the attempted murder.
She was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for the first 25 years on June 6, 1984, for Michael’s murder.
Surprisingly, she was acquitted of the charge of attempted murder but was found guilty of first-degree murder in the case of her first husband, James Goodyear.
The jury deliberated for 10½ hours, and for this, she was sentenced to death by electrocution on November 26, 1985.
Colorado prosecutors decided not to continue with the case against her over the murder of Bobby Joe Morris, as she was already under sentence of death in Florida.
It is estimated that she collected around $240,000 in insurance money from the deaths of her husband, son, and boyfriend in Colorado.
On Death Row
Condemned female inmates are housed at the Broward Correctional Center at Pembroke Pines in Florida, where Judi was to spend the next 13 years.
She continued to appeal and had three death warrants handed down over the years.
She spent her time confined to a 6 x 9 x 9.5 feet high cell.
Death row inmates are served meals three times a day: at 5:00 a.m., from 10:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., and from 4:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Food is prepared by prison personnel and transported in insulated carts to the cells. Inmates are allowed plates and spoons to eat their meals.
Visitors are allowed every weekend from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Inmates may receive mail every day except holidays and weekends.
They may have cigarettes, snacks, radios, and black-and-white televisions in their cells.
They do not have cable television or air-conditioning and are not allowed to associate with each other.
They can watch church services on closed-circuit television.
While on death watch (after a death warrant has been signed), inmates may have radios and black-and-white televisions positioned outside their cell bars.
Death row inmates wear orange t-shirts and blue-colored pants (as worn by regular inmates).
They are counted at least once an hour and are escorted in handcuffs to the exercise yard and the shower.
They are confined to their cells at all other times, except for medical reasons, exercise, social or legal visits, or media interviews.
It is a fairly harsh regime for long-term incarceration.
Judi spent the 13 years writing letters, crocheting blankets and baby clothes, and also taught Bible study to other inmates.
A former death row inmate, Deirdre Hunt, claimed that:
“Judy was like a mother to me.”
Execution
All executions in Florida are carried out at the State Penitentiary at Starke.
Prior to 2000, all were conducted by electrocution in the state’s 75-year-old electric chair, popularly known as “Old Sparky.”
A total of 240 men and one woman have been put to death in the three-legged chair, which was built by inmates in 1923. (It was rebuilt in 1999 for the execution of Allen Lee “Tiny” Davis, who was considered too heavy for the old chair.)
Judi’s last appeal was turned down on March 29, 1998.
Final Hours and Execution Procedure
On the morning of execution, March 30, 1998, Judi was taken from the death watch cell to the preparation room.
Her head was shaved, and a circular area of her right calf was also shaved to ensure direct electrical conductivity.
She was dressed in a standard blue prison dress without underwear to prevent clothing ignition.
At 7:02 a.m., she was escorted into the execution chamber and secured into the three-legged oak chair with eight heavy leather straps fastening her chest, groin, arms, and legs.
A saline-soaked natural sea sponge was placed inside the copper head electrode cap, which was fitted over her shaved scalp, and a secondary electrode was clamped to her lower right leg.
When asked by the warden if she had any last words, Judi quietly replied:
“No, sir.”
The leather veil was lowered over her face.
Execution Protocol
At 7:08 a.m., the executioner engaged the switch, initiating Florida’s automated two-minute electrical cycle:
- Initial High Voltage: An immediate surge of approximately 2,000 volts at 14 amps was administered for a duration of five seconds to cause instantaneous unconsciousness and cardiac arrest;
- Reduced Voltage: The current dropped automatically to 1,000 volts at 7 amps for eight seconds;
- Sustained Voltage: The cycle concluded with a continuous application of 208 volts for 107 seconds to ensure cellular death and prevent resuscitation.
When the current was cut off at 7:10 a.m., prison medical examiners stepped forward.
Following a statutory five-minute cooling period, stethoscope examinations confirmed that she had expired, and Judias Buenoano was officially pronounced dead at 7:13 a.m.
Conclusion
Judi Buenoano’s execution closed one of the most calculating serial murder-for-profit sagas in modern American criminal annals.
Through arsenic poisoning, drowning, and explosive devices, she methodically eliminated family members and romantic partners to harvest insurance payouts totaling nearly a quarter of a million dollars.
While legal and media controversies regularly erupted over executions of women—such as the high-profile media coverage of Karla Faye Tucker in Texas or the historic gas chamber execution of Barbara Graham in California—Buenoano’s execution proceeded with minimal public protest.
Following subsequent botched electrocutions in the same chair—most notably that of Allen Lee Davis in 1999—Florida amended its capital statutes to make lethal injection the primary execution method, ending the regular use of the historic chair that claimed Buenoano.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Judias (Judi) Buenoano?
Judias “Judi” Buenoano (born Judias Welty) was an American serial killer convicted of murdering her husband James Goodyear and her son Michael Buenoano, and attempting to murder her fiancé John Gentry II. She was executed in Florida’s electric chair on March 30, 1998.
Why was Judi Buenoano called the “Black Widow”?
The media nicknamed her the “Black Widow” because, like the spider that devours its mate, she methodically poisoned and murdered her husbands, partners, and paralyzed son to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in life insurance payouts.
How were her crimes uncovered?
Her crimes came to light in 1983 when her fiancé, John Gentry II, survived a car bomb explosion in Pensacola. Subsequent police investigations revealed that Buenoano had taken out a $500,000 life insurance policy on him, had given him arsenic-laced vitamin capsules, and lied about being pregnant.
How was Judi Buenoano executed?
She was executed in the Florida State Prison electric chair (“Old Sparky”) at Starke on March 30, 1998, receiving a standard multi-stage electrical cycle of 2,000, 1,000, and 208 volts. She was pronounced dead at 7:13 a.m.
Was Judi Buenoano the only woman executed in Florida’s electric chair?
Yes. Between 1924 and the suspension of the chair’s regular use, 240 men and only one woman—Judias Buenoano—were electrocuted in Florida’s electric chair.
Support the Archive
If you have found this article useful and would like to help preserve and maintain this historical archive, please consider supporting the site.
1 thought on “Judias (Judi) Buenoano – Florida’s “Black Widow””
Comments are closed.