Evil Lives Here is investigating the case of black widow Blanche Taylor Moore, who is suspected of killing her first husband, boyfriend, and of attempting to kill her second husband. There are suspicions that she might have also murdered her father.
When Blanche Taylor Moore finally went to trial in North Carolina, people saw a diminutive, middle-aged woman, a 57-year-old church-goer with the appearance of a kindly grandmother, and were amazed to discover she was a cold-blooded killer.
In 1952, Taylor Moore married James Napolean Taylor, and the pair had two children. However, by the 1960s, she was having an affair with Raymond Reid. Taylor Moore and Reid began publicly dating after Taylor died in 1971. At the time, his cause of death was listed as a heart attack.
By the mid-1980’s her relationship with Reid had begun to sour, and the relationship was all but over. In 1986, Reid was hospitalized and died from what doctors called Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare illness that involves the immune system attacking the nerves.
Shortly after Reid’s death, Moore began dating the Reverend Dwight Moore, and three years later, they married. However, the marital bliss didn’t last long as on returning from their honeymoon, Dwight collapsed after eating a chicken sandwich.
At the hospital, doctors discovered that he’d ingested a massive amount of arsenic. Dwight survived the ordeal and later learned that he had survived the largest dose of arsenic ever given to someone who lived.
Police grew suspicious of black widow Blanche Taylor Moore
The police were now very suspicious of Moore Taylor and ordered the bodies of her first husband, Taylor, and boyfriend, Reid, to be exhumed. Autopsies revealed that both men had actually died from arsenic poisoning.
Watch the Latest on our YouTube ChannelProsecutors began investigating Taylor Moore and determined they had enough evidence to charge her with the murder of Raymond Reid. Her trial in late 1990 led to her being convicted of murder.
In January 1991, a judge agreed with a jury’s recommendation that she be sentenced to death. Blanche Taylor Moore still maintains her innocence today and has fought to get her sentence commuted to life. As of writing, she remains on death row.
People have speculated as to why Moore Taylor committed these murders. One theory argues that she killed these men due to a deep-seated hatred of her alcoholic father, a womanizing Baptist minister, who had forced her into prostitution to pay off his gambling debts.
More from Evil Lives Here
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Evil Lives Here airs at 9/8c on Investigation Discovery.