Pod Insights Morbid Blanche Taylor Moore, The Oldest Woman on Death Row (Part 1) About this episode When the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation opened an investigation and Blanche was charged with the attempted murder, the arrest came as a shock to those who knew her. How was it possible that someone they all knew as “a sweet, Christian lady”—was an attempted murderer? And if she had been cunning enough to hide that side of herself from her community, what else had she been hiding?
Transcript 11,692 words · 6 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 Terry Cottle died by suicide, but his heart lived on, transplanted into Sonny Graham. Years later, Sonny died the exact same way, same heart, same fate. But that wasn't the strangest connection between them. Sonny also married Terry's widow. Hosted by Karen Kilgariff, this is Heart, an Apple original podcast produced by Plan B and Blanchard House. New episodes are available Mondays and Apple TV subscribers get special early access to the entire season. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts. Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.
0:31 Speaker 01 I'm Elena.
0:32 Speaker 00 And this is Morbid.
0:47 Speaker 00 This is Morbid. Honey, it's morbid post-Radio City.
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1:03 Speaker 01 That's exactly what I felt like.
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1:06 Speaker 01 It's true.
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1:10 Speaker 00 Ma and Papa had the best time.
1:11 Speaker 01 They did. They had, they were beaming.
1:13 Speaker 00 Seeing Ma in New York, Ma hadn't been to New York City in like decades.
1:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:16 Speaker 00 And had like the best time. We got to like do a really fun dinner afterwards with all of our friends, like my cup is full to the brim right now.
1:24 Speaker 01 It truly is.
1:25 Speaker 00 But it's time to get back.
1:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm happy to get back to normalcy a little bit.
1:30 Speaker 00 We spent so much time planning that live show. I think the last weeks of our lives were spent just like going over every single detail.
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1:49 Speaker 00 Marcus and Sophie specifically, jeez.
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1:55 Speaker 00 Truly. They were the sweetest people I think I've ever met in my life and like took such good care of us, took such good care of the stage and like just so much went into that.
2:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:05 Speaker 00 So thank you to everybody who made that happen and thank you to everybody who showed up to support us. It really means a lot to us.
2:11 Speaker 01 You guys rule.
2:11 Speaker 00 You do. But now it's time to get back to like our, our normal day to day, our regular morbid schedule.
2:20 Speaker 01 We're back, we're home.
2:21 Speaker 00 Mercury is in Gatorade and we saw something that said, or I should say.
2:26 Speaker 01 It wants you to slow down.
2:27 Speaker 00 I should say Mercury is retrograde. I have to stop saying in retrograde as a student of astrology.
2:32 Speaker 01 It's retrograde.
2:33 Speaker 00 Because that's just saying Mercury is in backwards.
2:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's in backwards, you know?
2:37 Speaker 00 But it's just, it's just backward.
2:39 Speaker 01 It's in backwards right now. And it, and it said, according to Eliza Kelly, who I trust.
2:44 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah.
2:45 Speaker 01 Trust in Eliza Kelly. She said, it wants you to slow down. And I said, I'm going to take that to heart, babe, because I'm like a missile right now and I, I need to slow down.
2:56 Speaker 00 Frankly, I'd like to slow down.
2:58 Speaker 01 Truly.
2:58 Speaker 00 Mama's tired.
2:59 Speaker 01 Truly.
3:00 Speaker 00 Mama is tired.
3:01 Speaker 01 I'm exhausted.
3:02 Speaker 00 And my asthma is flaring up again.
3:04 Speaker 01 My asthma.
3:05 Speaker 00 My asthma and the humidity. It said flare up.
3:08 Speaker 01 Flare up.
3:08 Speaker 00 Give that bitch some mucus in her throat and a cough.
3:12 Speaker 01 That's what it said.
3:13 Speaker 00 No, I don't know.
3:14 Speaker 01 You sounded like Donald Trump.
3:15 Speaker 00 Oh. I've never been more insulted in my life. Wow.
3:22 Speaker 01 It sounded like it.
3:24 Speaker 00 Yucky.
3:25 Speaker 01 It did.
3:25 Speaker 00 Well, how do we move away from that?
3:27 Speaker 01 Any, any way.
3:28 Speaker 00 Anything else? Do you want me to, should we just get right into the story? I actually, we probably should because I do have a long one today.
3:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, let's go.
3:35 Speaker 00 And I know like Jeffrey has his timer out, so.
3:38 Speaker 01 Exactly. So we're starting.
3:40 Speaker 00 Here we go. All right. So I have a two parter. This is obviously part one. Welcome. So we're going to be talking about Blanche Taylor Moore. And Blanche Taylor Moore is spoiler alert, just to really start you off to, to know what you're getting into, the oldest woman on death row in the United States.
3:56 Speaker 01 That's what we're getting into. Okay.
3:57 Speaker 00 Yeah.
3:58 Speaker 01 All right.
3:58 Speaker 00 That's where we're headed.
3:59 Speaker 01 Let's go.
4:00 Speaker 00 Before she headed to death row, she was born on February 17th, 1933, in Concord, North Carolina. She was the fifth of seven children born to Parker P D Kaiser and his wife Flawny.
4:14 Speaker 01 Okay.
4:15 Speaker 00 I'm obsessed with that name.
4:16 Speaker 01 Okay, Flawny.
4:16 Speaker 00 Okay, Flawny flaunted.
4:17 Speaker 01 All right.
4:18 Speaker 00 Now, technically, PD, the dad, was a mill worker, but his real passion was preaching the gospel.
4:25 Speaker 01 Okay.
4:25 Speaker 00 Preaching the gospel. PD proudly fell into the category of primitive preachers, which was kind of a group of untrained, definitely unpaid Baptist preachers, who traveled around to rural locations like campgrounds to preach, which only makes me think of True Detective, season one.
4:44 Speaker 01 Yes, absolutely.
4:45 Speaker 00 Like, what a... Like tent revivals.
4:47 Speaker 01 What an iconic season of television.
4:49 Speaker 00 True Detective is so good. I love season one.
4:51 Speaker 01 Truly.
4:51 Speaker 00 Now, according to author Jim Schutz, who we will link in the show notes and who we have used before, a great author, PD preached an intense, monotonous sing-song, literal interpretation of the Bible.
5:02 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
5:03 Speaker 00 I don't really know exactly what that means.
5:06 Speaker 01 It's a lot.
5:07 Speaker 00 It's a lot.
5:07 Speaker 01 It's a lot, but, you know.
5:09 Speaker 00 It felt like a lot.
5:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:10 Speaker 00 He always seemed to find a way to make money, which was a good thing, you know?
5:13 Speaker 01 Hey, all right.
5:14 Speaker 00 He was working, or he got donations.
5:16 Speaker 01 Always be closing.
5:17 Speaker 00 But he rarely used that money on his own family. The work of raising children and paying the bills basically just fell completely on Flawny, who worked full-time to just make do, basically.
5:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:30 Speaker 00 Basically just to keep a, uh, I almost just said a head over their roofs, a roof over their heads. Now, of the forty or so dollars a week that she made, she always gave half of that to her husband, who, according to Schutz, never made any secret of the fact that he was spending it all on young girls.
5:47 Speaker 01 Oh.
5:48 Speaker 00 Yeah, so that wasn't awesome.
5:51 Speaker 01 That was terrible.
5:52 Speaker 00 Now, in nineteen forty-two, when Blanche was only nine years old, the family moved to Burlington. Burlington did offer better job prospects, but the real reason for the move was probably because PD couldn't manage to stay employed for very long, and he kind of just ran out of options for employment and conquered. Now, despite his own proclivity for sex workers and gambling and drinking and generally not spending time with his own young family, he was very, very strict on his own children when he was around. And he had, I don't even want to call them high standards, because it's
6:24 Speaker 01 Like impossible standards?
6:26 Speaker 00 Impossible standards. The family didn't have much flowing in, so the girls were usually dressed in tattered rags and hand me downs essentially, but he would routinely inspect their outfits to make sure that they were quote unquote sufficiently modest.
6:41 Speaker 01 Come on.
6:42 Speaker 00 Which is also like, babe, you're the biggest hypocrite ever.
6:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, you gotta, you gotta make sure.
6:47 Speaker 00 You just have to be sure that everybody's modest, even though you're clearly not.
6:50 Speaker 01 Modesty is the most important thing, so important.
6:54 Speaker 00 Yeah.
6:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:55 Speaker 00 Fuck off. Now, the high standards didn't just end with what the kids looked like, what they were wearing, their appearances. They also were completely forbidden from participating in any after school activities.
7:07 Speaker 01 That's so fucked up. That actually pisses me off.
7:09 Speaker 00 Truly.
7:10 Speaker 01 Like a lot. Like, what good does that do?
7:13 Speaker 00 They couldn't socialize with their friends. They couldn't join a club, nothing like that. They had to come
7:18 Speaker 01 That makes me sad.
7:18 Speaker 00 Right home from school and probably pray.
7:21 Speaker 01 That, that's fucked up.
7:23 Speaker 00 Now, when Blanche reached her early teens, she was finally given enough freedom to get a job in one of the local shops downtown, probably because they needed more money and less about like her happiness.
7:33 Speaker 01 Exactly.
7:33 Speaker 00 But more time outside of the house also meant that she was able to socialize a little bit. And when she was about fifteen or sixteen, she started dating a boy named James Taylor. No, it's not that one.
7:44 Speaker 01 Thank you. I said of Tanglewood.
7:46 Speaker 00 Not of, not of Tanglewood fame, not of, not sweet baby James.
7:50 Speaker 01 Not sweet baby James.
7:51 Speaker 00 I fuck so heavy with that James Taylor though.
7:53 Speaker 01 James Taylor? Like our James Taylor? Like collectively all of our James Taylor?
7:58 Speaker 00 He is the most soothing
8:00 Speaker 01 He does.
8:00 Speaker 00 Voice. He's the voice of a generation. He is. He's actually, I feel he's the voice of many generations.
8:07 Speaker 01 I think he is too. You hear a James Taylor song, like a specific one that like you just
8:11 Speaker 00 You just hear that beginning guitar.
8:13 Speaker 01 Right.
8:14 Speaker 00 It does.
8:15 Speaker 01 Like that old, to be honest, my nervous system has been a little alight lately.
8:20 Speaker 00 Yeah.
8:20 Speaker 01 I'm gonna listen to a James Taylor song and I bet I'm gonna feel right as rain.
8:24 Speaker 00 You probably should, and I think you will.
8:26 Speaker 01 I will.
8:27 Speaker 00 Period.
8:28 Speaker 01 Thank you for that.
8:28 Speaker 00 You bet. So she met James Taylor, not V, but A, A. James Taylor. In a lot of ways, James and Blanche did seem like a really good fit for each other. In public, he was a good Christian boy. He doted on his mama. He did well in school. But in private, he loved a crass joke and a cold beer. So he had two sides to him.
8:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:49 Speaker 00 Within a few weeks of starting their relationship, James introduced Blanche to his family, which was kind of a revelation for her. Cause she knew most people came from stable and happy homes, but she had never seen one up close or experienced one.
9:02 Speaker 01 That's so sad.
9:03 Speaker 00 It is really sad, but the cool thing was that in the beginning of their relationship, she kind of like enmeshed in this family and they loved her.
9:11 Speaker 01 I love that.
9:11 Speaker 00 And they supported her and she like got her cup filled that way.
9:15 Speaker 01 Nice.
9:15 Speaker 00 Now, by that time, she had actually quit school and was just always looking for a good reason not to be home at her house. So she spent a lot of time at the Taylor house and apparently her and James's mom, Isla, were very close. When it came to James's relationship with Blanche, I told you the good things about him. But it was also hard not to see the similarities between her boyfriend, James and her father. James wasn't dismissive. He wasn't controlling, not in the way that her dad was, but he was a drinker and he did love to gamble. And he was also at times, according to Schutz, sentimental, childish, and given to eruptions of a violent temper.
9:57 Speaker 01 That's not great.
9:58 Speaker 00 He had very good facets of his personality.
10:01 Speaker 01 But he had flaws.
10:02 Speaker 00 And a lot of flaws.
10:03 Speaker 01 Some real flaws.
10:04 Speaker 00 As we all do, but he really needed to figure out how to rein those in.
10:08 Speaker 01 Yeah. When your, when your flaws start to, you know.
10:11 Speaker 00 Becoming violent.
10:12 Speaker 01 And when they start like messing with someone else, like affecting someone else.
10:16 Speaker 00 Yeah.
10:17 Speaker 01 Those are flaws you gotta take care of.
10:18 Speaker 00 That's the thing.
10:19 Speaker 01 You know?
10:19 Speaker 00 So not long after the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, James was drafted and he was sent to the Pacific to serve in the army. He returned a year later to Burlington. He proposed to Blanche and they got married on May 29th, 1952. At the same time, he found work restoring and refinishing fine furniture, which I feel like would be such a fun job.
10:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:41 Speaker 00 I love furniture videos on TikTok.
10:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, I feel like that would be very like fulfilling.
10:46 Speaker 00 Yeah, and like cathartic at the same time, too. He was really, really good at the job, but the income was modest. It really was barely enough to cover the bills of two people. So when Blanche gave birth to their daughter in nineteen fifty-three, the family really started to struggle financially, but never went to shy away from hard work. Soon after her daughter was born, Blanche got a job as a checkout clerk at the local Kroger grocery store, and she was an immediate hit with all of the customers.
11:14 Speaker 01 Dang.
11:14 Speaker 00 A former coworker Brenda Green told a reporter in nineteen eighty-nine, she was always pleasant, always outgoing to the customers. And she wasn't just a hit with the customers, she was really popular with the men who came into the store. She had a way about her.
11:29 Speaker 01 Her name's Blanche.
11:30 Speaker 00 I know. It's just, you know, comes with the territory.
11:33 Speaker 01 It does.
11:34 Speaker 00 A author she'd said, men lined up behind her register just so they could look at her. She sang to each one in her busy little chittering bird voice, always with some expression of concern for their personal affairs.
11:46 Speaker 01 Wow.
11:46 Speaker 00 So she was a little bit of a flirt.
11:48 Speaker 01 I was gonna say, she was kind of, she was digging it.
11:50 Speaker 00 She was, yeah, she was doing her thing.
11:51 Speaker 01 I know nothing about this case, by the way, so.
11:54 Speaker 00 Well, she's the oldest woman on death row, so.
11:56 Speaker 01 So there's that.
11:56 Speaker 00 Just, like I said, keep that, keep that with you.
11:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:00 Speaker 00 So at that time, the roles for Kroger employees were strictly segregated. Women filled the customer service jobs in the front of the store. Men worked the management, the stockroom, butcher roles in the back.
12:12 Speaker 01 Okay.
12:12 Speaker 00 Now, given the hierarchy, the highest that a female employee at Kroger could generally expect to make, like the highest position, was head cashier.
12:21 Speaker 01 Okay.
12:21 Speaker 00 It was kind of like a front-end manager position. They were like responsible for supervising the cashiers and the bag boys, just keeping everything in check. We've seen them.
12:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:31 Speaker 00 Now, that was the job.
12:32 Speaker 01 We love them.
12:33 Speaker 00 We've seen them, we love them, yeah. That was the job that Blanche was really determined to get, and when she set her mind to something, she did usually achieve it. Now, I said that, the customers loved her. Coworkers, not so much.
12:47 Speaker 01 E.
12:48 Speaker 00 Outwardly, she seemed to get along with people pretty fine, you know?
12:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:52 Speaker 00 But a lot of her coworkers didn't like the way that she played obvious office politics.
12:56 Speaker 01 Oh.
12:57 Speaker 00 And they saw that she was very clearly intent on climbing the ladder to get that head cashier position.
13:02 Speaker 01 Which like, that's bound to happen.
13:04 Speaker 00 It is bound to happen.
13:05 Speaker 01 Kind of like corporate or, you know, any retail environment.
13:08 Speaker 00 Well, and people are all vying for the same job, so that it kind of creates like a.
13:12 Speaker 01 It's competitive.
13:13 Speaker 00 Not a great environment.
13:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:14 Speaker 00 But that wasn't just it. Some of the cashiers suspected that Blanche was stealing from the company.
13:19 Speaker 01 Oh, that's not good.
13:20 Speaker 00 According to shoots, Blanche had a penchant for using loner registers and for moving around using other checkers drawers, rather than following the safe and share procedures designed so that each cashier would check out on a register that was entirely her own responsibility for each shift.
13:36 Speaker 01 Eek.
13:37 Speaker 00 She just kind of floated amongst them.
13:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:40 Speaker 00 Now, despite the rumors of her embezzling small sums of money, by 1959, Blanche did work her way up at Kroger and she got that head cashier position.
13:49 Speaker 01 Oh yeah, she got it.
13:51 Speaker 00 And the promotion couldn't have come at a better time because just a few months after she moved up, she gave birth to the couple's second daughter. So the extra income was an asset.
14:00 Speaker 01 Oh, hey.
14:01 Speaker 00 You know, it seemed things were going pretty good for Blanche in 1959.
14:04 Speaker 01 Seems like it.
14:05 Speaker 00 Yeah. But her personal life was starting to unravel a bit. That same year, her mother, Flawny, filed for divorce from PD citing her husband's abandonment as the reason.
14:15 Speaker 01 Hmm.
14:16 Speaker 00 PD Kaiser had basically left his wife and children a few years earlier to, quote, "find himself a younger woman."
14:23 Speaker 01 Oh, excuse you.
14:24 Speaker 00 And he also didn't contribute a dime to the support of their children since he left them. And now, even though all of that is true, that he was just a prick, at the time, going through a divorce would have been a pretty shameful experience, which is silly, but it just was. And sharing the details of her failed marriage in such a public forum wouldn't just be embarrassing, but humiliating, not just for Flawny, but also for the children like Blanche, even like the adult children. Now luckily, the judge was sympathetic and ordered PD to pay $25 a week in child support, which was dropped then to $10 a week the following year. And to everyone's surprise, though, he did pay the support. Huh. Yeah. So.
15:06 Speaker 01 That is interesting. I didn't see that coming.
15:08 Speaker 00 At least he paid it, you know, the bare minimum. But the public dissolution of her parents' marriage, which became then a big source of gossip in a small town, was a kind of a, a source of shame for Blanche. And on top of that, things in her own marriage weren't really going very well. After the birth of her second baby, she wasn't really interested in being with James romantically. And since getting married, in her view, he had changed quite a bit physically. And she just wasn't feeling very attracted to him.
15:39 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
15:39 Speaker 00 In addition, the gambling and the drinking that when he was younger made him seem wild and fun and carefree, now made him seem irresponsible and reckless and probably reminded her of her father.
15:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, that makes sense.
15:51 Speaker 00 Yeah. Now, even though he knew he was being judged, it didn't really seem like he gave a shit at this time. James kept drinking, he kept gambling. And he also had picked up a new hobby since he got back from Korea and just spent a lot of his weekends editing tape recordings of sermons from the Glen Hope Baptist Church so that the tapes could be sent overseas for missionary work. Which is like, cool, like, you know, you're getting a little extra cash by doing that, but you're also spending all your time away from your family by
16:20 Speaker 01 That's the thing.
16:21 Speaker 00 working, gambling and drinking.
16:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's like one, a couple of those things could go.
16:24 Speaker 00 Right.
16:25 Speaker 01 You know?
16:25 Speaker 00 Like work, for sure. Keep that up.
16:27 Speaker 01 Gambling and drinking.
16:28 Speaker 00 If it's affecting you negatively, you gotta stop.
16:30 Speaker 01 Maybe cut that back.
16:31 Speaker 00 Cut it back.
16:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:32 Speaker 00 Now, so by 1962, the distance between James and Blanche had become so evident that even strangers would have felt the tension between them. It wasn't just a lack of physical intimacy or the fact that he was just never home. But Blanche also found other ways to spend her time in the absence of her husband.
16:49 Speaker 01 Oh, boy.
16:50 Speaker 00 That year, she started an affair with her boss, Raymond Reed.
16:53 Speaker 01 Yep.
16:54 Speaker 00 And she barely tried to hide it, not only from her husband, but like, from anyone.
16:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, she doesn't give a fuck.
17:00 Speaker 00 She really didn't give a single fuck.
17:01 Speaker 01 Doesn't shock me.
17:02 Speaker 00 One theme of this story that you'll find is that Blanche does not give a fuck.
17:06 Speaker 01 Fucks are nowhere to be found.
17:08 Speaker 00 No, her fuck basket is barren. And that sounded a lot worse than I meant for her too, but you can leave it in. So before long, the tension over Blanche's obvious affair escalated to verbal abuse and occasion- occasionally physical abuse from her husband. Like the night that James and Blanche argued over her relationship and he just started flinging spoonfuls of chocolate pudding at her.
17:31 Speaker 00 In a mean way. I know that sounds silly.
17:34 Speaker 01 It does, but it's like-
17:35 Speaker 00 But it's mean.
17:36 Speaker 01 When you really think of that, I want you to picture that.
17:38 Speaker 00 Yeah.
17:39 Speaker 01 Weird.
17:40 Speaker 00 They're trying, like, they're having a serious conversation.
17:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, like, that's fucked up.
17:43 Speaker 00 Flinging pudding at her.
17:45 Speaker 01 Also-
17:45 Speaker 00 So childish.
17:47 Speaker 01 He was quite childish.
17:49 Speaker 00 Wow.
17:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:51 Speaker 00 Now-
17:51 Speaker 01 Wow.
17:52 Speaker 00 Despite their troubles and Blanche's ongoing affair, which she didn't give a fuck about, they kind of tried to keep up appearances as a happy couple, even though it was blatantly obvious to everyone that Blanche was having an affair.
18:03 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
18:03 Speaker 00 But in the early 1960s, James did decide to slow his drinking and he cut off all contact with his gambling circle. And he joined a church and found new friends there. Now, Blanche continued to work at Kroger, and she also filled a lot of her free time by selling Tupperware, which was such a thing.
18:21 Speaker 01 My god, Tupperware parties?
18:22 Speaker 00 Yeah.
18:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, that was like a real thing.
18:25 Speaker 00 I've always heard of them, but-
18:26 Speaker 01 Just buy Tupperware.
18:28 Speaker 00 I kind of want to go to a Tupperware party because one thing about me is I make people food and then I lose my Tupperware.
18:34 Speaker 01 That's the thing. When, when I think of Tupperware parties, I'm like, not a bad idea, because I can always use more Tupperware.
18:41 Speaker 00 Should we start Tupperware parties again?
18:43 Speaker 01 Maybe we should have a Tupperware party.
18:44 Speaker 00 Maybe we should have a Tupperware party. Do you feel like the word Tupperware is losing all meaning?
18:47 Speaker 01 Tupperware.
18:48 Speaker 00 Say Tupperware again.
18:49 Speaker 01 Tupperware.
18:51 Speaker 00 I want to say it again. Tupperware.
18:52 Speaker 01 Just one more time.
18:53 Speaker 00 So, yeah, we should have those parties again.
18:55 Speaker 01 I think so, too.
18:56 Speaker 00 So she just randomly started doing that. And it seemed like she was a powerhouse salesperson, because she routinely filled her nights with those parties and other events. But what James thought was his wife's satisfying side job was in fact a cover story that allowed her to keep her nights free to spend with her boss Raymond, who she was sleeping with, and other men in town who she was also sleeping with.
19:20 Speaker 01 Fuck Blanche.
19:21 Speaker 00 Yeah. She kind of seemed to have a growing obsession with sex.
19:25 Speaker 01 Oh.
19:26 Speaker 00 And it was obvious to anybody who spent any time with her. At work, she was relentlessly flirty, not just with her boss Raymond, but with any man she found attractive. And she found a lot of men attractive. According to Schutz, this is wild. She might be mid-sentence talking about Jesus in the Bible, and she would stop and mutter to a coworker, "Man, I'd like to see the dick on that guy."
19:50 Speaker 01 At no part of that did I know where it was going.
19:54 Speaker 00 But then we got there.
19:55 Speaker 01 At no part of that, even at the end.
19:57 Speaker 00 She said.
19:58 Speaker 01 What the fuck?
19:59 Speaker 00 Imagine.
20:00 Speaker 01 I've never had someone say that to me.
20:03 Speaker 01 Or in my presence.
20:04 Speaker 00 I don't think I have.
20:04 Speaker 01 No, I've never heard somebody say that.
20:08 Speaker 00 Man, I'd love to see the dick on that guy. What do you say? It's very Samantha Jones, I guess.
20:13 Speaker 01 It is very Samantha Jones. I feel like you just have to be like, okay.
20:17 Speaker 00 Woo wee, Blanche.
20:20 Speaker 01 I bet, I bet.
20:21 Speaker 00 Yeah.
20:22 Speaker 01 That's like, what are you, neat?
20:23 Speaker 00 Go for it.
20:25 Speaker 01 Yay.
20:25 Speaker 00 Hope that works out for you.
20:27 Speaker 01 Awesome.
20:28 Speaker 00 Period.
20:29 Speaker 01 Hey. Honestly, period to me is like the best response.
20:32 Speaker 00 Cause you have to put an end on that sentence.
20:34 Speaker 01 Period.
20:35 Speaker 00 Period, Blanche.
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22:36 Speaker 00 So she grew more promiscuous, more reckless. And as she was doing that, James actually seemed to finally grow into adulthood.
22:44 Speaker 01 Oh, look at this.
22:45 Speaker 00 His drinking and gambling was pretty much under control at that point. And he actually started spending more time with his kids. And at this point in time, found that he genuinely loved being a father.
22:55 Speaker 01 Wow. Took him a minute.
22:57 Speaker 00 Kinda did a 180 here.
22:59 Speaker 01 Okay.
23:00 Speaker 00 Took him a minute, but at least he got there. Exactly. Now, when he wasn't doting on his daughters, he could easily be found spoiling his nieces and nephews, especially his sister Dot's children because their father had died a few years earlier in a drowning accident.
23:13 Speaker 01 Oh, geez.
23:14 Speaker 00 So he was really trying to fill that role, too. The happier James became, though, the more frustrated and disgruntled Blanche became.
23:23 Speaker 01 Which shouldn't be the case.
23:24 Speaker 00 No, when your husband's succeeding, like, you're supposed to be really happy about that and vice versa.
23:29 Speaker 01 Your husband or wife or partner is thriving. That should make you feel like, oh, hell, yeah.
23:34 Speaker 00 Yeah, like, part of marriage is celebrating each other's wins.
23:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
23:38 Speaker 00 But no matter the circumstances, she criticized his every move. She constantly commented on his appearance, which included a lot of fat shaming.
23:46 Speaker 01 Oh.
23:47 Speaker 00 Which is, like, really shitty.
23:47 Speaker 01 That's mean.
23:48 Speaker 00 And if she wasn't complaining about how much money he was spending on his hobbies or on the kids, she was criticizing him, like I said, for how much weight that he had put on since they got married.
23:59 Speaker 01 That's just mean, man.
24:00 Speaker 00 Which I'd like to point out, sometimes is a sign of happiness.
24:02 Speaker 01 It's true comfortability.
24:04 Speaker 00 Exactly. Now, at the same time, James's family, who had once been very kind and welcoming to Blanche, remember?
24:10 Speaker 01 But they're probably like, what the fuck?
24:11 Speaker 00 That's the thing. They started to grow cold and distant around there because it wasn't any secret that she was cheating on him.
24:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, so not only is she cheating, but she's also bullying him while he's being a good dad.
24:22 Speaker 00 And humiliating him when he's made these like
24:25 Speaker 01 Life changes.
24:26 Speaker 00 These life changes that it seemed like she wanted him to make.
24:28 Speaker 01 That's the thing. Not everybody makes those changes or grows like that.
24:32 Speaker 00 And here's the thing, like, sometimes it is too late for you, for you to make it up to another person.
24:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, for them to want to be along for the ride with you going through these changes, and that's okay.
24:44 Speaker 00 That's okay, but you just get divorced.
24:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, you don't bully them. Like, you just, you say, okay, it's so cool that you're doing this, but I'm, it's past the point of being repaired.
24:54 Speaker 00 I'm glad you made those changes, but
24:56 Speaker 01 But you're gonna make them without me.
24:57 Speaker 00 It's too far gone, and I hope you keep it up.
24:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:00 Speaker 00 So, yeah, his family was just like, you know what, um, we really don't like you anymore.
25:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, don't blame them.
25:05 Speaker 00 So by the mid 60s, her world was rapidly changing, and it doesn't really sound like for the better. For somebody who craved and seemed to require control to feel a sense of stability at at least one point, the ongoing upset at home was becoming unbearable for her. So in September of 1966, Blanche experienced one of the more defining moments of her life, when her father, P D., passed away.
25:27 Speaker 01 Oh.
25:28 Speaker 00 This is interesting. And that's all I can say. It's allegedly pretty interesting.
25:33 Speaker 01 Okay.
25:34 Speaker 00 According to the coroner, the cause of death was a heart attack brought on by chronic emphysema. The death didn't come as a big surprise to really anybody who knew him, because P D. had been a pretty much a lifelong smoker, and he had always been pretty reckless when it came to his health. Uh, and he also led a kind of nomadic existence. He just moved from one town to another. So there wasn't a real consistent record of his healthcare to speak of.
25:57 Speaker 01 Okay.
25:58 Speaker 00 I think that, you know. Raised some eyebrows later.
26:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:03 Speaker 00 Now, if anybody had been paying close attention to his symptoms just before his death, the cause of death might have been diagnosed as something altogether different. He entered the hospital the day before he died complaining of chest and stomach pains, and he was admitted and moved to a room. Over the course of the next thirty hours or so, though, he experienced a range of symptoms, most of which were internal, that included paralysis in the limbs, painful irritation of the nose and throat, aggressive bloating, and a burning sensation in his hands and feet, among other things.
26:38 Speaker 01 What?
26:40 Speaker 00 Also, if somebody had been at his bedside when he died, or immediately after, they maybe would have noticed a strong scent of garlic on his breath.
26:49 Speaker 01 Oh.
26:49 Speaker 00 Despite the fact that he hadn't been eating garlic.
26:52 Speaker 01 Hmm.
26:53 Speaker 00 And I don't know if you guys know this, but um, all of those signs are prominent telltale signs of arsenic poisoning.
27:01 Speaker 01 Oh. Our old friend arsenic.
27:05 Speaker 00 Yeah. Now, the problem was PD checked into a large, busy city hospital where he was obviously attended to, but it was periodically by nurses and doctors. There was nobody there who was consistently monitoring his symptoms. And even if they had suspected that his death wasn't natural, by the time of the autopsy, arsenic would have passed out of his system entirely.
27:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:26 Speaker 00 So even if the coroner had suspected arsenic poisoning, they might not have found any evidence of that to put in a toxicology report.
27:35 Speaker 00 Now, weirdly, Blanche didn't really seem moved by her father's death.
27:42 Speaker 00 Um, you know, maybe that could have provided some insight to people in her life.
27:47 Speaker 01 Be something that you would at least be like, huh.
27:50 Speaker 00 Yeah.
27:51 Speaker 01 You know?
27:52 Speaker 00 But you know. Who's to say they had a tough relationship?
27:55 Speaker 01 They did. That's the thing. They had a very complicated relationship.
27:58 Speaker 00 So I see both sides.
27:59 Speaker 01 And it's not like he was a warm, fuzzy.
28:02 Speaker 00 Yeah.
28:03 Speaker 01 Um, and didn't allow them to have any kind of real life as they were growing up. So that could just be distance emotionally in that way.
28:13 Speaker 00 And she also had a lot going on at home.
28:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:15 Speaker 00 While PD was writhing in pain in the hospital, Blanche's marriage was rapidly deteriorating. By the late sixties, the once private arguments between Blanche and James started to spill over into public spaces and their neighbors became accustomed to not only hearing, but seeing the couple scream at each other in the front yard or driveway. In one particularly bad incident in nineteen sixty-nine, neighbors watched in horror as they got into a shoving match one Sunday on their way to church.
28:46 Speaker 01 Oh.
28:47 Speaker 00 And what started as a verbal agreement quickly escalated to James trying to shove Blanche into the car. She immediately got out of the car and slammed the door behind her, but her coat was caught in the door when it shut. And he started backing down the driveway, so she was pulled to the ground and dragged down the driveway on her knees until James finally stopped the car.
29:11 Speaker 01 We were rooting for you.
29:12 Speaker 00 We were rooting.
29:13 Speaker 01 We were all rooting for you. How dare you?
29:16 Speaker 00 Yeah.
29:17 Speaker 01 What?
29:18 Speaker 00 And on your way to church.
29:19 Speaker 01 On your way to church.
29:21 Speaker 00 Are you going to confession too?
29:22 Speaker 01 You're gonna sit in that pew and act like everything's fine?
29:25 Speaker 00 Yeah.
29:26 Speaker 01 Fuck, that is crazy.
29:28 Speaker 00 It is crazy.
29:29 Speaker 01 Holy shit.
29:31 Speaker 00 Now, James had always been a pretty easily excitable man, you know, he had gambled and drank in the past.
29:36 Speaker 01 Yes.
29:37 Speaker 00 He got harried really quickly, but with all the tension in his marriage and the changing state of the world around them, the stress of life was starting to take a toll on him physically. And one afternoon in nineteen seventy, as he was driving into downtown Burlington, he was stopped by a police roadblock and told he couldn't go in the direction he was going because there was an active shooting situation.
29:59 Speaker 01 Wow.
29:59 Speaker 00 Now, obviously, he immediately turned the car around and drove home, but the situation caused him such incredible anxiety that by the time he got home, he was shaking and sweating profusely. And then that turned into vomiting and violent diarrhea.
30:14 Speaker 01 What?
30:15 Speaker 00 So he finally went to see his doctor and was informed that he had had a fairly serious heart attack.
30:21 Speaker 01 Holy shit.
30:21 Speaker 00 And unless he wanted to experience another one, he needed to make some major changes in his life.
30:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:27 Speaker 00 So the health scare marked a major turning point in his life. About six months later, Blanche came to her own major turning point, too, when Raymond Reed and his wife finally divorced. That's her boss that she was having an affair with. James was still doing his best to raise their kids and, you know, avoid his blood pressure spiking.
30:45 Speaker 01 Jesus Christ.
30:46 Speaker 00 And Blanche was spending almost all of her free time with Raymond, explaining to anyone who cared that she was just trying to help him out because he didn't have a wife anymore.
30:54 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. Just trying to stand in as his wife.
30:57 Speaker 00 But at that point, they had been carrying on a pretty public affair for almost 10 years.
31:03 Speaker 01 So people were like, are you guys serious?
31:05 Speaker 00 Yeah.
31:06 Speaker 01 Are you for real?
31:07 Speaker 00 That's the thing.
31:08 Speaker 01 Be so serious right now.
31:09 Speaker 00 The increased attention really didn't seem that unusual to anybody, not even to James. He fully knew that they were continuing their affair. Now, maybe it was because he was so accustomed to his wife's infidelity, or maybe he was just trying to not have another heart attack. But whatever the case, he really never expressed any disappointment in Blanche. After they went through that really big period of arguing and then it just seemed like they were like, okay, we'll live together and we'll be married, but like, I fucking hate you and you know I do, so let's not even talk about it.
31:38 Speaker 01 That's really sad. What a sad existence.
31:41 Speaker 00 And sad for their kids.
31:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's sad for everybody.
31:43 Speaker 00 Yeah. So they just carried on as usual. He worked a lot, took care of the bills. She, you know, had a grand old time at Kroger.
31:54 Speaker 01 Holy shit.
31:55 Speaker 00 But all of that came to an end in the fall of 1973. One day in late September of that year, James started experiencing symptoms of what he thought was the flu. He was getting bad headaches, his glands were swollen, and he was becoming violently ill. When the symptoms finally got so bad that he couldn't manage them anymore, he went to see a doctor. But by then, things had escalated significantly. In addition to all the earlier flu-like symptoms, he now had painful blisters on his hands and feet. His hair was falling out in clumps.
32:27 Speaker 01 What?
32:28 Speaker 00 And his face was beginning to swell. The doctors had actually never seen anything like this, but they were like, it's not related to your heart, that's for sure.
32:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, some shit is going on.
32:38 Speaker 00 So the doctor ordered a myriad of tests to rule out various illnesses and hopefully find the cause in the case of what the fuck was going on here. But after several tests, James was worried about the cost of the treatment and asked that no more tests be conducted. Which is like really sad.
32:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, cuz it's like something is obviously going wrong.
32:57 Speaker 00 Yeah. Now, on the night of October 2nd, Blanche had just cooked dinner and set the table, but James told her his throat was hurting too much to eat, so he skipped dinner. But rather than let her husband go without dinner entirely, Blanche, being the sweetie bo beady that she is,
33:12 Speaker 01 Oh no.
33:13 Speaker 00 brought him some ice cream and convinced him to at least have some of it. It might make his throat feel better, you know?
33:20 Speaker 01 I'm scared.
33:21 Speaker 00 Now unfortunately, within the hour after having said ice cream, James was writhing in tremendous pain on the couple's bed, which then escalated to, I'm so sorry, violent projectile vomiting.
33:34 Speaker 01 Oh no.
33:35 Speaker 00 And he said, the feeling that something was inside of him trying to claw its way out.
33:41 Speaker 01 What the fuck?
33:43 Speaker 00 Rather than call for an ambulance, Blanche sent her daughter away, telling the girl she'd arrange for a doctor in the morning. And then she made up the couch and she went to sleep on it.
33:55 Speaker 01 What?
33:56 Speaker 00 While her husband lay upstairs projectile vomiting with the feeling that somebody was trying to claw its way out of him.
34:03 Speaker 01 That is horrifying.
34:06 Speaker 00 I'm sure you will be shocked to hear this, but the next morning when Blanche went to the bedroom to check on James, she found him on his side, his hands twisted like claws, and his face a bluish purple color.
34:19 Speaker 01 Oh my god.
34:20 Speaker 00 Under the circumstances, I think almost fucking anybody would call for some sort of help.
34:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:26 Speaker 00 Emergency services, police, what have you.
34:28 Speaker 01 Dead to me.
34:29 Speaker 00 Blanche just calmly informed her daughter that her father was dead and then went to call her other daughter, who I think maybe was at a sleepover or something, and informed her of the same thing. In fact, Blanche called nearly every single one of James's relatives.
34:45 Speaker 00 To tell them that their loved one was dead. And also, she called the man she'd been having an affair with for 10 years, Raymond Reed, to tell him also that her husband was dead and to please come over. And then finally, she called an ambulance and reported the death.
35:07 Speaker 01 I can't even picture this. Like, this is.
35:11 Speaker 00 Next level.
35:11 Speaker 01 This is mayhem.
35:13 Speaker 00 Why would you call, what's like a male mistress? Just a mister?
35:18 Speaker 01 Your paramour, maybe?
35:20 Speaker 00 Paramour? Why would you call your sidemen's over?
35:23 Speaker 01 Your side piece?
35:25 Speaker 00 To your house when like, your husband just died?
35:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:29 Speaker 00 And why would you call his whole family instead of emergency services? And why would you call your daughter? And just tell them calmly, daddy's dead? Why?
35:40 Speaker 01 I... I don't even know what to say. I don't even know what to say.
35:46 Speaker 00 His death was listed a heart attack? Which made sense, given his medical history. But like P D Kaiser's death one, uh, years earlier, no one considered the events and the symptoms that led up to the 45-year-old supposed heart attack.
36:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:03 Speaker 00 Or the fact that those symptoms would not have been caused by heart failure.
36:07 Speaker 01 Hmm.
36:08 Speaker 00 So for a short time after James's death, which just happened and life moved on, apparently.
36:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, apparently.
36:15 Speaker 00 Blanche played the role of a grieving widow, but really in no time, things got back to normal. Her daughter Cindy said in 1989, "Mom never expected to spend the rest of her life by herself. She said she had too much to offer."
36:28 Speaker 01 Wow.
36:29 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
36:30 Speaker 01 She was just like, "Yeah, I don't give a shit."
36:32 Speaker 00 Yeah. Blanche and Raymond continued to see each other, but they would only visit each other at their respective homes so as to not contribute to any gossip, even though they'd literally been together for like 15 years.
36:44 Speaker 01 I was gonna say, like, really?
36:46 Speaker 00 But, other than the living arrangements, they were very much a couple in every sense. And thinking back on that time, uh, Blanche's daughter Vanessa had fond memories. She said Raymond was a very good man. He was very good to us.
36:59 Speaker 01 I mean, that's good.
37:00 Speaker 00 So for a little bit, the arrangement seemed to suit everybody just fine. They could carry on their affair while Blanche still had enough space to continue building her own identity, independent of men in her life, for like four seconds. But her relationship with Reed wasn't the only bad habit that she carried on after her husband died abruptly. She also kept up her scheme of petty theft from the registers on the store.
37:22 Speaker 01 She's still at that?
37:23 Speaker 00 She's been at that.
37:25 Speaker 01 God damn.
37:26 Speaker 00 Uh, people started to notice the missing money and people already had in the past, but more and more people were beginning to notice.
37:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
37:34 Speaker 00 And finally, in 1976, a bag of cash went missing from the store.
37:39 Speaker 01 Wow.
37:39 Speaker 00 As the person responsible for the register when the money went missing, Blanche was immediately suspected of the theft and she was actually even questioned by the police and a private investigator that Kroger hired.
37:51 Speaker 01 Oh, my God.
37:52 Speaker 00 But they couldn't find any evidence and so there was no way she could be charged with anything. But a few months later, most people in Burlington did find it pretty odd that Blanche was able to afford a down payment on a new house.
38:05 Speaker 01 Pretty interesting.
38:06 Speaker 00 Even though she had the salary of a grocery store clerk.
38:09 Speaker 01 She's just really good at it.
38:11 Speaker 00 She's just thrifty.
38:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
38:13 Speaker 00 Now, just as it had been with her now dead husband, as Blanche started to come into her own as a single woman, Raymond Reed's life became considerably more difficult.
38:21 Speaker 01 Hmm.
38:22 Speaker 00 After he got divorced, his relationship with his wife was very bitter and it was worse than it had ever been, actually, even when they were married. So it was hard for him to keep seeing his kids on a regular basis.
38:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
38:32 Speaker 00 Which like, maybe you should think about that before you cheat on your wife, just saying.
38:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think that would be a good advice.
38:37 Speaker 00 That's just how I feel.
38:37 Speaker 01 Hmm.
38:38 Speaker 00 But then there was problems at the store. In addition to the occasionally mysteriously missing money that he probably knew his mistress was responsible for, the store wasn't making the kind of profit that it needed to remain a viable branch.
38:50 Speaker 01 Hmm.
38:51 Speaker 00 So that meant that there were more frequent visits by the store's regional manager, Robert Hutton. Now, like Raymond, Robert, sorry, it might get confusing here.
39:00 Speaker 01 Robert.
39:01 Speaker 00 Robert.
39:02 Speaker 01 Sorry, I miss Marcus the Worm.
39:03 Speaker 00 We must quote Marcus the Worm at all times. Uh, Robert Hutton was very devoted to the Kroger, Kroger company, a lot like Raymond, and he loved his job. But that's where the similarities between the two of them ended. Robert Hutton, the manager, he was young, he was apparently good looking and, uh, said to be cartoonishly masculine.
39:25 Speaker 00 I'm just picturing Johnny Bravo.
39:28 Speaker 01 What is, what was the, it was in Twilight, one of the Twilight movies, something feminine, like aggressively feminine.
39:35 Speaker 00 Oh.
39:35 Speaker 01 That it reminds me of that cartoonishly masculine.
39:39 Speaker 00 It's hard to say.
39:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, cartoonishly masculine.
39:43 Speaker 00 Was it aggressively feminine?
39:44 Speaker 01 I think it was like aggressively feminine.
39:46 Speaker 00 It was in, I think it was in the book.
39:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, it is in the book. I think it's like Jacob's chapter.
39:50 Speaker 00 Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, didn't he, he says Rosalie and um.
39:54 Speaker 01 And Alice.
39:55 Speaker 00 And Alice, right?
39:56 Speaker 01 Yeah. Just reminded me about.
39:58 Speaker 00 Now we have cartoonishly masculine.
39:59 Speaker 01 I love it.
40:00 Speaker 00 Robert bragged about his ability to sleep with any woman he wanted to, loved telling raunchy jokes, which like you probably shouldn't do as the manager of a store.
40:07 Speaker 01 Probably not.
40:08 Speaker 00 Yeah. And he also had a habit of sleeping around with women at various stores in his district.
40:13 Speaker 01 Ew, what a pig.
40:14 Speaker 00 And really didn't make it a secret. So after careful review, he concluded that the Burlington Kroger did not stand a chance of survival. And the store ended up having to be closed. Now fortunately, he did recognize that a lot of the staff was in fact very reliable, very competent, good people. Including Blanche and Raymond. So like maybe not good people, but so they were all offered jobs at other area locations at a pay cut though. Raymond was demoted to assistant manager in Martinsville, and that was in one of the Virginia stores. And Blanche was demoted to just a regular old cashier position in Greensboro. A few months later, uh, Hutton moved Raymond to the Durham, North Carolina store and then promoted him back to manager, but Blanche stayed where she was.
41:00 Speaker 00 Now, not surprisingly, the demotion and relocation were major disappointments for Blanche. She didn't have the power that she had over other cashiers anymore.
41:09 Speaker 01 Oh, no.
41:09 Speaker 00 And she also didn't get to spend every day with her side man. So therefore she didn't know what he was getting up to while she was away.
41:17 Speaker 01 Who's to be sure?
41:18 Speaker 00 I know. Well, you know, that's the thing you have to worry about.
41:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, you gotta be worried.
41:22 Speaker 00 It took some time, but by 1983, she managed to get transferred to the store that he worked at.
41:27 Speaker 01 Oh, man, guys.
41:29 Speaker 00 The relocation meant at least an hour long commute each way, but apparently it was worth it to her to keep up her relationship with Raymond. And it also meant that she would be working alongside Robert Hutton, who she thought was irresistibly attractive since they had met years earlier. This bitch wants to have her cake and eat it too.
41:47 Speaker 01 She does.
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42:47 Speaker 00 Now, about the 1980s, the early 1980s, Blanche and Raymond's relationship had been going on for like 15 years or possibly more. And like her marriage before it, things had become less exciting than they once were. As he got older, Blanche didn't find Raymond to be so attractive anymore. She didn't think he was as fit as he should be. She really loves to fat shame, I just gotta say it.
43:09 Speaker 01 She really does.
43:10 Speaker 00 She does. He also had grown tired of their not-so-secret relationship and really just wanted to be together, since they could be now.
43:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:19 Speaker 00 But that wasn't fun for her. After she moved to the Greensboro store, he actually asked her to marry him, but she was like, "No."
43:27 Speaker 01 My god.
43:28 Speaker 00 And then he asked her to marry him again.
43:29 Speaker 01 She said no.
43:30 Speaker 00 And she was like, "No."
43:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, guy, she said no.
43:32 Speaker 00 And then he kept asking her to marry him, and she continued to say no.
43:36 Speaker 01 My god, get it together.
43:37 Speaker 00 Yeah, she didn't just not want to marry him, but she really wasn't interested in changing their relationship at all. She was like, "We can have a clandestine affair forever and ever." Now, if she wasn't interested in marrying Raymond and committing to monogamy, it's probably because she had her sights set on Robert Hutton, now the store manager, the other one. Over the months that they've been working together, she was dropping hints indicating her interest in him, but he hadn't really picked up on anything, which was kind of crazy because he was a disgusting pig who regularly groped women that he employed.
44:07 Speaker 01 God.
44:08 Speaker 00 So I guess subtlety was something he wasn't accustomed to.
44:10 Speaker 01 Oh, he lacked sorely.
44:12 Speaker 00 But despite his aggressiveness with some women at the store and his tendency to grab them without permission, he knew that his attention wasn't wanted from Blanche. He, like, he thought that she didn't want him to do that to her, I guess.
44:25 Speaker 01 Oh.
44:26 Speaker 00 Um.
44:27 Speaker 01 What made him think that?
44:28 Speaker 00 I don't really know, to be honest with you. But eventually Blanche dropped the subtlety and got right to the point and just told him that she wanted him and she knew he wanted her.
44:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
44:37 Speaker 00 So I guess they got together.
44:39 Speaker 01 There it is.
44:39 Speaker 00 Now, by 1985, her life was spinning out of control again. She was still seeing Raymond regularly and continuing to deny his marriage proposals.
44:47 Speaker 01 Cool.
44:48 Speaker 00 While also carrying on a sexual relationship with her boss, Robert Hutton. And apparently balancing the two was getting a little bit difficult.
44:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
44:56 Speaker 00 So that January, the chaos escalated when Blanche called Raymond one day to tell him that she had come home and her house was ablaze.
45:05 Speaker 01 Oh.
45:05 Speaker 00 She said, hello, Raymond, I got home and it's engulfed in flames.
45:10 Speaker 01 Hi. My house is on fire.
45:12 Speaker 00 He raced over to Blanche's house and when he got there, luckily by then, the firefighters had managed to put out the flames, but the damage had been done. When they went into the bedroom, fire investigators found all of Blanche's underwear and lingerie scattered about. And she claimed that there had been a pervert prowling around the house days before, and she was pretty sure that he was the one who set the fire.
45:33 Speaker 01 Oh, excuse me.
45:34 Speaker 00 But weirdly, when they asked for any defining characteristics of this person that she had seen only days earlier, Blanche couldn't remember any details.
45:42 Speaker 01 Okay.
45:43 Speaker 00 At all.
45:43 Speaker 01 Okay.
45:45 Speaker 00 So her homeowner's insurance paid out a large sum.
45:48 Speaker 01 Hmm.
45:48 Speaker 00 And she sold the house as is, which is crazy, but she managed to come out ahead. And she used the money to buy a mobile home a few miles away. But this fire is where things really started to get fucking crazier in her life. Over the course of a year, she continued her affair with Robert Hutton and her relationship with Raymond, while also having a bunch of one night stands with a bunch of other men in town.
46:10 Speaker 01 Blanche.
46:11 Speaker 00 She's young and she's getting it, I guess.
46:13 Speaker 01 She is young and getting it. So that's one way of describing this.
46:17 Speaker 00 I don't know how else to say it. A few months after the fire that destroyed her, for her house, Blanche was again, sadly, the victim of another house fire.
46:28 Speaker 01 You know what? Some people arson just kind of follows.
46:31 Speaker 00 It's crazy.
46:32 Speaker 01 Follows them around.
46:33 Speaker 00 It's the weirdest thing.
46:34 Speaker 01 You can never figure out why.
46:36 Speaker 00 You really can't.
46:36 Speaker 01 You know, sometimes fire just.
46:38 Speaker 00 Fire curses.
46:39 Speaker 01 Fire follows people.
46:40 Speaker 00 Yeah, it follows, but it's fire.
46:42 Speaker 01 It does, but it's fire.
46:43 Speaker 00 Fire follows. So Raymond got to Blanche's house to pick her up for, for fucking church one afternoon. I'm sorry. It's just wild to me that this woman goes to church. But he was getting annoyed that she was taking so long, which was gonna make them late. And he didn't want to be late for church. So after she finally, no, he's, he's a righteous man.
47:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, he's a righteous man.
47:04 Speaker 00 Righteous Raymond.
47:05 Speaker 01 Let's be real.
47:06 Speaker 00 So after she finally got out to the car, they had barely pulled out of the driveway when Raymond slammed on the brakes and said, Blanche, there's smoke coming out of your bedroom window. In response, she didn't look back. She just said, no, I think that's the sun reflecting on it.
47:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:21 Speaker 00 I'm sorry, but if somebody tells me that there's smoke coming from my bedroom window, I'm gonna tell them, hey, would you mind pulling back in the driveway so I can figure out what the fuck that's about?
47:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, no, I'd just be like, I bet it's just the sun reflecting. I'm not worried.
47:34 Speaker 00 Yeah, she was like, listen, we're late. We have to get to church.
47:37 Speaker 01 Don't worry about that.
47:38 Speaker 00 How crazy.
47:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:39 Speaker 00 When they returned from church later that evening.
47:41 Speaker 01 I bet I know.
47:42 Speaker 00 They entered the house to find that the place was on fire.
47:46 Speaker 01 Oh my god, so much fire.
47:47 Speaker 00 Can you believe it?
47:48 Speaker 01 More fire.
47:49 Speaker 00 Small flames were licking around the corners of the bedroom. And Blanche exclaimed, oh damn it, must have been that pervert again.
47:56 Speaker 01 Must have been.
47:57 Speaker 00 Just that, that arsonist pervert.
47:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, that fiery pervert.
48:01 Speaker 00 Not a fiery pervert. So Raymond grabbed the fire extinguisher from the kitchen and managed to put out the remains of the flames. But again, the damage had been done and Blanche's bedroom was a mess of fire and smoke damage.
48:13 Speaker 01 Because of the fiery pervert.
48:15 Speaker 00 In the closet, there was a single wax candle burning on the floor.
48:21 Speaker 01 That's odd.
48:22 Speaker 00 That's the mark of a fiery arsonist pervert.
48:26 Speaker 01 Yes.
48:26 Speaker 00 To Raymond's surprise, though, the insurance company paid out a second claim on the fire without any questions.
48:33 Speaker 01 Huh.
48:34 Speaker 00 I feel like a man took that claim, I just have to say it. So during this time, Blanche managed to get a medical note from a doctor that claimed she had intestinal problems, which had been exacerbated by the fire. So it was possible she may need to take time off from work periodically. Of course, she very much used that as an excuse to blow off work or call out whenever she felt like it.
48:54 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
48:55 Speaker 00 Which put Raymond in a difficult position every time she did it, because he was her manager. By that summer, he finally insisted that Blanche had to return to work or she had to find a different job. But rather than given, she apparently went to Robert Hutton and initiated sex with him in his office, which produced a favorable result in terms of extending her medical leave.
49:19 Speaker 01 Every decision she makes, I just never know where it's going.
49:23 Speaker 00 I know that was a crazy way to tell you what happened, but like, how else was I supposed to word it?
49:28 Speaker 01 Honestly, I don't know.
49:29 Speaker 00 Yeah.
49:30 Speaker 01 I don't know.
49:31 Speaker 00 So she didn't want to lose that job, so she got to work.
49:34 Speaker 01 Okay.
49:34 Speaker 00 In a different way.
49:35 Speaker 01 She did, she sure did.
49:36 Speaker 00 Yeah, in case you didn't pick that up.
49:38 Speaker 01 Oh, I picked it up.
49:39 Speaker 00 Everything that was happening at the time, it's very abundantly massively clear that Blanche was becoming more and more reckless with every day that was passing.
49:48 Speaker 01 It would seem so.
49:50 Speaker 00 But all, like that being said, at the same time, it really didn't seem like she had a long-term strategy for anything. But at the same time, not everything she did was on impulse. One week after she and uh Hutton had sex in his office, Blanche showed up at the law office of Walker Hoy and uh Carnotl.
50:10 Speaker 01 Walker and or Hoy and Carnotl?
50:12 Speaker 00 Yeah, them.
50:13 Speaker 01 Them.
50:13 Speaker 00 The law.
50:14 Speaker 01 The office.
50:15 Speaker 00 Of law.
50:16 Speaker 01 Yep.
50:17 Speaker 00 In a meeting with Douglas Hoy, one of the men.
50:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
50:20 Speaker 00 Involved in the law. Uh, she laid on a long history of the sexual harassment that she experienced at Kroger at the hands of the district manager, Robert Hutton.
50:30 Speaker 01 Whoa.
50:32 Speaker 00 Yeah, do you remember that she did go to his office and initiate sex to keep her job? After hearing the story she told, Hoy agreed to take the case, obviously. And in January of nineteen eighty-six, she filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Kroger.
50:46 Speaker 01 Holy shit.
50:47 Speaker 00 For thirteen point eight million in Superior Court.
50:51 Speaker 01 Wow.
50:52 Speaker 00 Among other things, the suit accused Robert Hutton of four counts of battery, four counts of assault, four counts of inflicting emotional distress, and one count of invasion of privacy. The suit also alleged that executives at Kroger were aware of Hutton's sexual proclivities and failed to take any precautionary measures.
51:11 Speaker 01 Wow.
51:12 Speaker 00 She claimed that on one, on multiple occasions, excuse me, he had called her into his office or conference rooms and exposed himself to her.
51:20 Speaker 01 Ew.
51:20 Speaker 00 Fondled her or made sexual advances.
51:22 Speaker 01 Fuck that guy.
51:23 Speaker 00 In the most egregious of these incidents, she claimed that he approached her from behind, sorry, this is all very graphic.
51:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:29 Speaker 00 He approached her from behind while she was stocking items and grabbed her around the waist and said, are you ready for this?
51:36 Speaker 01 Ew.
51:36 Speaker 00 And I'm not asking you if you're ready for this, that's what he asked her.
51:39 Speaker 01 That's like literally what he said.
51:40 Speaker 00 And she said, they're in the grocery store, please remember that.
51:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:44 Speaker 00 She said when she turned around, he was nude from the waist down.
51:47 Speaker 01 Ew.
51:47 Speaker 00 She said she managed to get out of his grasp and grab his pants and underwear. And then she ran out of the store, which forced him to leave wearing a shirt and a tie and a butcher's apron.
51:57 Speaker 01 Oh, my God.
51:58 Speaker 00 She also alleged that he frequently threatened to fire her or transfer her to another store if she didn't acquiesce to his demands.
52:06 Speaker 01 I mean, that's fucked up.
52:08 Speaker 00 Remember that Blanche is the oldest woman on death row.
52:11 Speaker 01 Remember that.
52:12 Speaker 00 Okay.
52:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, we should remember that.
52:14 Speaker 00 Now, given his history with women at the company, though, because he is a pig.
52:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:18 Speaker 00 Not all of this is true, like all, everything that she put in her lawsuit and like, we know that.
52:22 Speaker 01 But he is piggy.
52:22 Speaker 00 But he is a pig.
52:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:24 Speaker 00 Uh, so given his history with women, it really wasn't that hard for anybody to believe what Blanche had alleged. And Robert Hutton was forced to resign from his position.
52:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:33 Speaker 00 The case got held up in pre-hearing motions for the next two years. Until in late nineteen eighty seven, Kroger finally agreed to settle for two hundred and fifty thousand.
52:41 Speaker 01 Damn.
52:43 Speaker 00 So Blanche has a lot of money now.
52:45 Speaker 01 Sure does.
52:46 Speaker 00 Now, in the spring of nineteen eighty six, one of Blanche's sisters called and asked if she would join them for Easter service at the Carolina United Church of Crast in Burlington.
52:54 Speaker 01 Of Crast.
52:55 Speaker 00 Her husband, uh, Blanche's sister's husband was in the hospital dying from cancer. And this was a tradition that they always looked forward to. So Blanche agreed to accompany her to the service. Now Blanche had been to that service many times in her life. I just feel like it's like, you know what I mean?
53:10 Speaker 01 Laugh.
53:11 Speaker 00 I think it's Blanche and Crast.
53:13 Speaker 01 You got it.
53:14 Speaker 00 But here's, so she had been there a million times, but when she arrived for Easter service in nineteen eighty six, she was surprised to find that the church had been taken over by a fine new pastor.
53:23 Speaker 01 Oh, you don't say?
53:24 Speaker 00 Reverend Dwight Moore.
53:25 Speaker 01 Dwight, you say?
53:27 Speaker 00 In Dwight, yeah. In fact, Easter was to be Moore's first big celebration as the new pastor. So the stakes were very high and he was very much looking forward to this event.
53:36 Speaker 01 Oh, absolutely.
53:37 Speaker 00 Now, not long before he arrived in Burlington, before he found himself as head pastor. He had gone through a really painful divorce, which was not officially the cause for his moving, but it was almost certainly why he was reassigned.
53:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
53:51 Speaker 00 So he hoped the new scenery and the new community would be an opportunity to heal some of his pain. Now, for someone who had been drawn to the flair and drama of her father's fire and brimstone preaching. Blanche wasn't terribly impressed with Reverend Moore when she, when she first saw him.
54:05 Speaker 01 Hmm.
54:06 Speaker 00 Unlike the preacher she was used to from her youth, he was kind of a modern church leader who focused on the more positive aspects of Christianity.
54:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
54:13 Speaker 00 And he kind of left behind like darker. Old Testament lessons that he thought were scary.
54:19 Speaker 01 Skrur.
54:19 Speaker 00 Skrur. But still, there was something about him that Blanche found intriguing. He was handsome, he was friendly, he was energetic. Maybe she didn't like his preaching, but she lacked his face.
54:29 Speaker 01 Oh, there you go.
54:30 Speaker 00 And for his part, he couldn't help but find himself drawn to Blanche as well.
54:34 Speaker 01 Oh, no.
54:35 Speaker 00 As soon as that Easter service ended and the congregation made their way to Easter breakfast, he immediately spotted Blanche and her sister and he made his way over to their table. Now, if he had been in Burlington for more than a few weeks, the odds were that he probably would have heard a lot of rumors about Blanche.
54:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
54:52 Speaker 00 And while he may not have approved of that gossip, he probably would have stayed away.
54:55 Speaker 01 Probably.
54:56 Speaker 00 But he hadn't heard about Blanche's salacious and occasionally scandalous past.
55:00 Speaker 01 Uh oh.
55:01 Speaker 00 So he saw no reason why he shouldn't reach out to her.
55:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, why not?
55:04 Speaker 00 About a week after the Easter service, he managed to get a hold of her address, which is a little bit sketchy. And he showed up at her house one evening, but she wasn't home.
55:12 Speaker 01 Hmm.
55:13 Speaker 00 He returned a few days later and managed to catch her and the two sat down, chatted over coffee, gave her a little of his history, they got to know one another. Now, as religious leaders go, Dwight Moore's backstory was surprisingly atypical. After high school, he went to Duke University where he studied theology. Being educated in a traditional university, I guess, made him kind of an outlier in the Christian church. But what was more surprising was that shortly after beginning his service at his previous assignment, he started having an affair with his secretary, Eileen.
55:47 Speaker 01 Oh.
55:48 Speaker 00 Who was also married at the time.
55:50 Speaker 01 Okay.
55:51 Speaker 00 Eileen eventually left her husband and she and Moore made their relationship public. But it was always a well-known secret that they started seeing each other when they were both married.
56:00 Speaker 01 My god.
56:01 Speaker 00 After nearly twenty years together, their uh, their relationship eventually soured and they divorced, which proved too scandalous for the congregation, and that's why he moved.
56:11 Speaker 01 They said, we can't have this.
56:13 Speaker 00 They said, uh, uh, bleh. Now, maybe Blanche saw something of herself in Dwight Moore's story, or maybe she just liked the way he looked, who's to say?
56:22 Speaker 01 She liked his face.
56:22 Speaker 00 She did like his face. Whatever it was, the two hit it off and they started seeing each other more again, more and more. Uh, and they made sure to keep everything a secret. For more, another romantic scandal would have had him excommunicated and probably kicked out of his new congregation.
56:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
56:38 Speaker 00 And as for Blanche, her lawsuit against Kroger alleged that as a result of workplace harassment, she had been unable to form healthy relationships with men.
56:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
56:48 Speaker 00 So if the new relationship got out, that case probably would have been lost.
56:52 Speaker 01 Probably.
56:53 Speaker 00 Now, as her interest in Dwight Moore grew, the amount of time that she had in her life for Raymond decreased, and that wasn't lost on him. In the spring of 1986, he showed up at Blanche's house unannounced, and he gave her a very expensive ring and a velvet-lined box. And he said, "Don't feel like I'm trying to pressure you. I just wanted you to have something nice for me." Now, that wasn't all Raymond gave her that day. He also handed her over two tickets and a hotel confirmation for a trip to Florida.
57:24 Speaker 00 Just wants to have a nice little trip with her.
57:26 Speaker 01 Okay.
57:27 Speaker 00 Now, during their trip to Florida, they did embark on a trip to Florida.
57:31 Speaker 01 Okay.
57:31 Speaker 00 Raymond did everything he could to endear himself to Blanche. He wanted to rekindle their once-passionate romance. He paid for everything. He complimented her. He flattered her endlessly.
57:41 Speaker 01 Damn.
57:42 Speaker 00 Doted on her morning until night. Sounds really nice. But nothing really seemed to work. When they got back from the trip, she told her psychiatrist, "I feel really guilty when I tell Raymond not to come over. He always wants to come to my house. I gotta tell him goodbye."
57:56 Speaker 01 She's like, "You know what? This is kind of bullshit."
57:58 Speaker 00 She's like, "I do feel feelings, but like, I'm not into it."
58:00 Speaker 01 Well, like, I'm kind of annoyed.
58:01 Speaker 00 So like she had done years ago, when she was cheating on her husband, Blanche went out of her way to keep Dwight, Pastor Dwight, a secret from Raymond. But he was hearing the rumors from the cashiers at the store and from everybody else in town. And the thought of losing Blanche to another man was so incredibly stressful that eventually his body began to react to the stress.
58:21 Speaker 01 Oh, no. You don't say.
58:23 Speaker 00 Or so he thought.
58:24 Speaker 01 Hmm.
58:25 Speaker 00 One afternoon in the spring of 1986, after experiencing an outbreak of some kind of painful blistering rash.
58:32 Speaker 01 Oh, no. Probably out of nowhere.
58:34 Speaker 00 Out of nowhere, I tell you. Raymond went to his doctor, Dr. Norman Garrett, who took one look at one of those red blistered boils on his skin and diagnosed him with...
58:44 Speaker 01 Shingles.
58:47 Speaker 00 Shingles is incredibly painful and incredibly disrupting, but it can be brought back under control with medication and with rest. But no matter how much Raymond rested and took the medication as he was directed, he wasn't getting any better.
59:01 Speaker 01 Oh, no.
59:02 Speaker 00 And by April, he ended up being admitted to the hospital. By that time, he was experiencing significant numbness in his arms and legs.
59:10 Speaker 01 Oh, shit.
59:10 Speaker 00 And a burning sensation with severe stomach discomfort.
59:14 Speaker 01 Oh, no.
59:15 Speaker 00 So for the next several months, he spent most of his time in and out of the hospital and traveling to different specialists, just trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. Eventually, they diagnosed him with Guillain-Barre syndrome, Guillain-Barre, um, which is a rare immune disorder where basically your body's muscle system just starts to fail.
59:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's crazy.
59:37 Speaker 00 The symptoms can look a lot like the symptoms of poisoning.
59:40 Speaker 01 Oh.
59:40 Speaker 00 But at the time, nobody had any reason to suspect that it wasn't Guillain-Barre.
59:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
59:46 Speaker 00 Now, in early October, only five months after his symptoms emerged, Raymond Reed died in the hospital.
59:53 Speaker 01 Oh, shit.
59:54 Speaker 00 Now, according to her daughters, Blanche visited Raymond often in the hospital and seemed distraught by his death. But I'd like to highlight, visited him often in the hospital.
1:00:05 Speaker 01 Was in the hospital with him.
1:00:07 Speaker 00 Yeah. Not only that, she, she did act publicly distraught over his death, but not so distraught that she wasted any time in delivering his safe to his kids, his sons, a few days after his, after their father had died. The safe had been in Raymond's house when he died and the boys knew that's where he kept an antique coin collection that he was saving for them.
1:00:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:00:28 Speaker 00 And, uh, there were silver bars in there too, that he collected over the years. But when they opened the safe with the key that Blanche gave them, his sons were surprised to find that the silver bars were missing, and so was the large chunk of a coin collection.
1:00:43 Speaker 01 Oh.
1:00:44 Speaker 00 Everything was gone.
1:00:45 Speaker 01 That's so fucked up.
1:00:47 Speaker 00 It's so fucked up and so strange. How did that happen?
1:00:49 Speaker 01 That's so fucked up when things disappear like that.
1:00:52 Speaker 00 I know, and people just die miraculously after having the strangest symptoms.
1:00:57 Speaker 01 So crazy.
1:00:58 Speaker 00 But that, my friends, is where we're gonna end for part one.
1:01:01 Speaker 01 Damn.
1:01:02 Speaker 00 And in part two, we'll learn a lot more about strange symptoms and things that go missing and the woman that is behind all of it.
1:01:07 Speaker 01 Blanche is really out here.
1:01:09 Speaker 00 Blanche Taylor Moore is a reckless woman.
1:01:11 Speaker 01 I mean, she's the oldest woman on death row, so she, she did it.
1:01:16 Speaker 00 She did something.
1:01:17 Speaker 01 So whatever, whatever been done, she did it.
1:01:22 Speaker 00 Period.
1:01:24 Speaker 01 I can't believe she's gonna do more.
1:01:26 Speaker 00 She's gonna do more. I have a whole part two.
1:01:28 Speaker 01 Oh shit.
1:01:29 Speaker 00 Yeah. There's, there's a pastor too.
1:01:32 Speaker 01 Oh man, of course there is.
1:01:33 Speaker 00 There's, I mean, you know him, Dwight.
1:01:36 Speaker 01 Of course.
1:01:36 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:01:37 Speaker 01 I, I knew Dwight wasn't gonna get out of this.
1:01:40 Speaker 00 Maybe.
1:01:40 Speaker 01 Maybe not. Not scot-free, I imagine.
1:01:44 Speaker 00 I'll tell you in part two.
1:01:45 Speaker 01 I guess you will.
1:01:46 Speaker 00 All right. Well, I have a fun fact for you, actually.
1:01:49 Speaker 01 Oh.
1:01:49 Speaker 00 I don't even know if it's my turn, but it is.
1:01:51 Speaker 01 Cool.
1:01:51 Speaker 00 I got a Snapple yesterday.
1:01:53 Speaker 01 Oh, you did?
1:01:54 Speaker 00 I haven't had a Snapple in forever and I forgot that they put fun facts in the cap.
1:01:59 Speaker 01 I forgot that too.
1:01:59 Speaker 00 And my fun fact was gorillas burp when they're happy.
1:02:03 Speaker 01 I love that.
1:02:04 Speaker 00 And I too.
1:02:05 Speaker 01 Good for gorillas.
1:02:05 Speaker 00 Burp when I'm happy.
1:02:06 Speaker 01 I do too.
1:02:07 Speaker 00 It's awesome.
1:02:08 Speaker 01 So good for all of us.
1:02:09 Speaker 00 Mikey knows that better than anyone.
1:02:10 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:02:11 Speaker 00 All right. Well, with all that being said, we hope you keep listening.
1:02:14 Speaker 01 And we hope you.
1:02:15 Speaker 00 Keep it.
1:02:16 Speaker 01 Weird.
1:02:17 Speaker 00 So weird that you're so happy that you burp, burp, burp, burp, burp.
1:02:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:02:20 Speaker 00 Burp your world away. Yeah. Burp all your world away. But not so weird that people around you start dying with painful blisters all over their body. Cause like, that's just so strange.
1:02:31 Speaker 01 That's so weird.
1:02:33 Speaker 00 Unexplainable.
1:02:34 Speaker 01 And don't, you know, be followed by a fire perv.
1:02:38 Speaker 00 No.
1:02:39 Speaker 01 Don't do that.
1:02:40 Speaker 00 That's weird.
1:02:40 Speaker 01 Don't do that. A fiery perv, if you will.
1:02:42 Speaker 00 Not a fiery perv.
Previous Morbid Book Club: Victorian Psycho By Virginia Feito Next Blanche Taylor Moore, The Oldest Woman on Death Row (Part 2) Page updated October 29, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
