Black Widows

[The Tracker]

No Georgia Peach

Black Widows generally do not have a criminal record before their active burst. Many of them, up to the time before they commit their first murder, have spotless civic reputations and are often caryatids of faith, family and community. There is little forewarning of trouble. In a layman's vernacular, they simply snap.

But... is that word misleading? Experts on serial killers would argue that Black Widows are not insane. They would agree that Janie Lou Gibbs, although a recognized church pillar and devoted mother, was of sound mind and deliberate strategy when she murdered her husband, three children and a grandson in Cordele, Georgia, for their life insurance policies.

Her first victim was husband Marvin Gibbs, who died after eating one of his wife's family meals in 1965. Collapsing at home, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors blamed his death on the effects of a previously undiagnosed liver disease. There followed a general outpouring of sympathy from the Gibbs' fellow church members, other Christian Fundamentalists, who came forth to offer the widow and her children consolation and support. In appreciation, Janie donated part of the money she received from Marvin's life insurance policy to the church.

One year later, 13-year-old Marvin, Jr., died of what was diagnosed as a similar ailment. Again the community assembled and again bowed its heads in prayer for the reassurance of the unfortunate Gibbses. Again, Janie proudly gave her congregation a percentage of the insurance payout.

Within months of his brother's funeral, Lester Gibbs, who had just turned sixteen, developed a series of dizzy spells and headaches. When he was found dead in January, 1967, the hospital pronounced it hepatitis. At his wake, out of earshot from the weeping mother prostrate over the coffin, general dialogue ruminated about the plague that seemed to have struck the Gibbs family. What the hell is going on? they asked in a more pedantic manner.

When her tears subsided, Janie announced she wanted to give the church another sum of money left to her.

Throughout much of 1967, peace seemed to have come to the household. Janie's oldest son, Roger, and his wife were expecting their first child. Janie's attention seemed to have turned from dark days to the upcoming baby. In August, she beamed for all to see when she became a grandmother.

By September, both baby Raymond and his dad were dead.

Medical men could not understand what happened to the newborn. He had been healthy, strong, with organs in perfect working order. Even an autopsy failed to detect anything anatomically wrong.

As for Roger, his kidneys had seemed to just quit working without any apparent cause, and again an autopsy resulted in a non-conclusion. The hospital grew suspicious, especially since his son had died only weeks earlier, also of undetectable origin. The family physician called in the state crime lab to consult.

Results strongly evidenced arsenic poisoning. Armed with this information, authorities disinterred the remains of the other Gibbs children and the grandson for like examination. When results came in affirmative, Janie Gibbs was arrested.

Her lawyers pleaded her insanity, but the State of Georgia was not swayed. The Georgian Black Widow, no peach of a woman, is still in prison where she is serving a life sentence for each of her victims.

[The Tracker]

Almost a Perfect Crime

The deaths of Waneta Hoyt's children in New York State were, for many years, framed in scholarly medical publications as concrete examples of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS. SIDS is a tragic and spontaneous illness that kills children literally overnight in their beds; it is believed to be genetic and gives no warning signals. Simply, it causes "loss of breath," according to an article in the New York Times, and children suffocate in their sleep.

In researching SIDS for a scholastic industry study of the disease, Dr. Alfred Steinschneider, a pediatrician from Syracuse's Upstate Medical Center, learned in 1972 that the Hoyt family of Oswego had lost five of its six children to a SIDS-like affliction between the years 1965 and 1971. The Hoyt case (identified in his paper only as "the H. case" for respect of the family's privacy) became landmark and Steinschneider's findings appeared in medical journals and magazines worldwide, including the highly respected Pediatrics magazine, in October of 1972.

Steinschneider details the deaths of several toddlers who died from SIDS, which he believes is an advanced form of apnea, a failure of a child's internal breathing apparatus. Among the case histories examined are the deaths of Molly and Noah, the last two Hoyt children to die.

In 1986, New York State Prosecutor William Fitzpatrick was researching infant-death statistics for a case he was conducting against a mother who allegedly murdered her infant. He came upon Steinschneider's report and, in reading about the "H" case, was struck by stark similarities between the murder case he was prosecuting and the symptoms of the disease that killed the Hoyt kids. The more he studied youth mortalities, the more he truly believed that the Hoyt children were murdered by someone in their family.

Despite the professionalism of the medical verbiage and the excellent, earnest work done by Dr. Steinschneider, Fitzpatrick remained unconvinced that the five Hoyt youngsters — ranging from six weeks to two years at the time of their deaths — died of natural causes.

That skepticism haunted him. When appointed District Attorney of Onondaga County (New York) in 1992, he secretly opened an investigation on the Hoyts. He sought the help of fellow DA Bob Simpson of neighboring Tioga County, where the Hoyts lived. Medical files were reviewed, doctors were questioned and evidence was drawn from the investigative files of each of the five Hoyt children. When the two district attorneys were certain they had accrued enough evidence, Simpson issued an arrest order for the children's mother, Waneta E. Hoyt, in March of 1994.

Forty-six year-old Waneta denied all allegations until she broke down under interrogation. She admitted that she could not endure the children's crying and, frustrated, not knowing how to quiet them, simply smothered them either under their pillow or by pushing their faces against her breast. Her first victim had been three-month-old Eric, on January 25, 1965. Six-week-old Julie died on September 5, 1968, to be followed by her two-year-old brother, James, two weeks later.

Two years passed before Waneta and her husband decided to have more children. At the time, friends praised the mother's bravery; she had lost three of her four children and yet (as they saw it) she took on the odds despite great personal anguish. Molly Hoyt was born in 1970, but died a year later. Noah came into the world in 1971, only to leave it in 1972.

Waneta sits in a state prison today, for life. Perhaps her greatest aberration is the memory she has of her children, the tiny, helpless faces she sees in her dreams, night after night.

[The Tracker]

One Busy Lady

Blanche Taylor Moore of Alamance County, North Carolina, could not have fashioned herself as another Nannie Doss any better than if her predecessor came back to life herself. But, while Nannie was basically a congenial sort — well, on the surface — Blanche leaned towards the moody and grim.

A product of a Depression-era alcoholic father who forced her into prostitution to pay family bills, Blanche Kiser finally found an escape from this dysfunctional home. She flew her small burgh of Tarheel by grabbing the first man who asked her to marry him. She was 19 years old; husband Jim Taylor was twenty-four. The year was 1952.

Rash or not, the marriage ran happily for many years. Blanche bore two children, one in 1953 and another in 1959. After a decade of harmony, however, the relationship began to crumble. Jim found another love, the amber-toned Lady Whiskey, whom he would enjoy at the local tavern every night after work. To compensate for her abandonment and to buff the pain of her husband's newfound recreation — which was so reminiscent of her hated father — Blanche found a replacement, too. But, hers was flesh and blood. In fact, there followed a queue of many men, any one who listened to her and held her like she wanted to be held.

By 1966, Blanche had had enough of kisses going nowhere. As if Jim Taylor's binges had reawakened girlhood nightmares, and as if she thought eradicating the unpromising past would erase the disappointing present, Blanche began to pave the way for a new fulfilling life for herself.

She committed her first murder by killing her father, Parker Kiser. During a visit, she dumped a spoonful of arsenic into the disagreeable old man's beer stein. After his funeral, when she realized that her act had saved her nothing, she returned to the escapist arms of lover Raymond Reid, a stockman at the local grocers. In the meantime, she contemplated the snuffing out of husband Taylor.

Taylor was destined to go (after eating one of Blanche's meals), but not before his invalid mother, for whom Blanche cleaned and cooked on a daily basis. Once Taylor had safely deposited the inheritance from his deceased mother into the family bank account, he inadvertantly signed his death warrant. Like Mr. Kiser's and Widow Taylor's, Jim Taylor's death was diagnosed as natural.

Boyfriend Reid's remonstrance of marriage suddenly began to peter off. The cold feet he encountered may have been attributed to a suspicion he felt about the all-too-easy removal of roadblocks on their way to the altar. If so, Blanche sensed his caution and soon Raymond Reid was a tombstone in the local cemetery. She had poisoned him a little at a time, slowly, surely, to perplex the town doctors. In the end, they attributed his illness and death to a hard-to-treat anatomical quirk.

Before she put Reid six feet under, by the way, Blanche had maneuvered him into signing over half of his property. She may have lost a fiancee, but she gained 50 grand.

Blanche didn't blanch at the prospect of a new meal ticket. She now set her sites on the new pastor of the local United Congregational Church. Reverend Dwight Moore and she met in 1985 at a community function. A thorough planner, Blanche wrapped herself in the cloak of a wholesome middle-age widow seeking Christian comfort and a happy retirement. The reverend bit. Over the next four years their relationship escalated until they became man and wife in 1989.

Her name on both his will and bank account, Blanche proved expeditious in attempting to unload herself of the cleric. On their honeymoon, she made sure that his breakfast included bacon, waffles and arsenic. Moore grew ill and had to be rushed to the hospital. Somehow, he survived. Doctors said he had caught a virus.

Back in North Carolina only a few days, Moore's symptoms returned. Worse than before. Once more, his bride brought him to a hospital. Routine tests again indicated signs of a virus.

But, unlike others she had encountered, Blanche found the doctors at North Carolina Memorial Hospital much more astute — and suspicious. They ordered toxic tests. In doing so, they not only saved Reverend Moore's life, but undoubtedly the lives of other well-off males Blanche would have caught in her web. The results of the tests performed on the pastor concluded that he had ingested a great deal of arsenic over the previous week — a great deal of poison, in fact. That he lived was a miracle from God.

[The Tracker]

Chapter 7

Black Widow's Greatest Sin

Black Widows, the variety that wears women's clothing, are very much alive today, and they kill. Their lives may not be as melodramatic as Mary Ann Cotton's, as glamorous as Marie Besnard's, or as stern as Blanche Taylor Moore's. Many will never get caught.

While this article has taken a sometimes-wry look at the Black Widow throughout history, and the approach has occasionally been tongue-in-cheek, there is indeed a very serious side to the woman who kills obsessively for profit. These are the women who also kill their children.

A report on Women Offenders issued by the Bureau of Justice in 1999 gives startling and sickening results about child murder, data gathered from the Bureau's years of investigation. The report informs us that between 1976 and 1997, parents and stepparents murdered 11,000 children. Interpreted, that figure means that almost 525 innocent youngsters were slain per year for the past 21 years. Mothers and stepmothers were directly responsible for half of these murders. More so, the majority of the homicides perpetrated by mothers occurred during their child's infancy.

Motive was not exclusively for-profit. Instigators were also anger or bewilderment, driven here and there by alcohol or drugs. Methods varied, suffocation taking a large part.

The Black Widow in the year 2000 has changed little. She still manipulates. She still smiles in your face and adds ant poison to your coffee. She still smothers and poisons. As well, her modus operandi becomes more technical, compliments of Waneta Hoyt who taught her peers the advantages of using SIDS and other hard-to-diagnose illnesses as a shield.

"Medical experts now believe that between one and 20 percent of the 7,000 to 8,000 babies who are annually diagnosed as having died of SIDS may have actually died of other causes," write authors Michael and C.L. Kelleher. "Sadly, many of these infants may die at the hands of their mothers."

Considering that the most basic beast of the wilderness fights to the death to protect its helpless young from predators, there is the saddest comment of all on the human animal who is that predator.

[The Tracker]

Chapter 8

Hard-Hearted Hannah

Why on earth would any woman want to murder her husband? In the naïve world that pre-existed television news, men actually imagined that the gentle creatures with whom they shared their beds were too passive ever to entertain thoughts of murder.

It's hard to say how many husbands suffered horribly painful deaths after the "little woman" decided that she had quite enough and planned what was often the perfect murder. Poison was the weapon of choice. It was easy to come by and its results were often mistaken for acute disease.

Ann Jones in her book Women Who Kill, tells about Hannah Hanson. After a failed marriage to Ward Witham, she moved to Boston in the early 1830s where she supported herself and her three children by sewing. There she met George Kinney and they became good friends. She also met up with Lowell, MA minister Rev. Enoch W. Freeman who was both her cousin and an old boyfriend.

Hannah became Mrs. Enoch Freeman in 1835, but sadly one year later the Rev. Freeman met his maker under some unusual circumstances. There was scandal about jealousy involving another woman and so Hannah had to leave Lowell.

Resourceful woman that she was, she went back to Boston and married her friend Mr. Kinney. Again, misfortune plagued the new bride and her groom. Mr. Kinney's business failed, so she had to go back to sewing and millinery to support the whole family. Work she did willingly until she discovered that her husband indulged himself in gambling and drinking binges.

It was not the alcohol that did him in, however, it may have been the herb tea Hannah fixed for him that carried him off in great pain in August of 1840. When the arsenic was found in his body, the police wondered about it got there.

Was he suicidal because of the failure of his business? Did he overdose on the many medications that were prescribed by his various physicians? During that time, arsenic was taken in small amounts for syphilis and other medical purposes. Arsenic, if he were taking it in conjunction with the powerful opiates he had been prescribed, could have resulted in accidental death.

Or, did Hannah get miffed over having to work for money he wasted on his own pleasures? Actually, there was no direct evidence found to tie her to her husband's death, except that the Rev. Freeman had died in an identical way.

She was tried and acquitted because twelve men could not believe that an attractive, hard-working and moral woman would ever do such a thing.

[The Tracker]

Shirley Allen, more than 100 years later, was more organized than Hannah if, indeed, Hannah did kill her kill her two husbands.

Michael Newton in Bad Girls Do It! writes that Shirley married Joe Sinclair in October of 1968, but tried to poison him some eight months later. He wisely got out of her life. In 1977, Shirley married again, this time to John Gregg, who she believed had him make her the beneficiary of his life insurance policy. When he unexpectedly collapsed and died, she was unpleasantly surprised to find out he didn't make her the beneficiary after all.

Lloyd Allen was the man she married in 1981. He went downhill almost immediately and died of indeterminate causes the next year. The $25,000 life insurance policy and nasty rumors resulted in an autopsy and a finding of antifreeze ingredients in Lloyd's body.

Shirley finally got caught when her daughter told police that she saw her mother put what she believed was antifreeze in Lloyd's drinks. Shirley wasn't as fortunate as Hannah and was sentenced in 1984 to life in prison.