Blanche Taylor Moore

Blanche Taylor Moore

Blanche Kiser Taylor Moore is awaiting execution in North Carolina for the 1986 arsenic poisoning of her boyfriend. She is also suspected in the death of a mother-in-law and her first husband, and the attempted murder of her second husband in 1989. Blanche’s father was an alcoholic, who she said later forced her into prostitution to pay gambling debts.

About Blanche Taylor Moore in brief

Summary Blanche Taylor MooreBlanche Kiser Taylor Moore is awaiting execution in North Carolina for the 1986 arsenic poisoning of her boyfriend. She is also suspected in the death of a mother-in-law and her first husband, and the attempted murder of her second husband in 1989. Blanche’s father was an alcoholic, who she said later forced her into prostitution to pay gambling debts. In 1962, Blanche began an affair with Raymond Reid, the manager of the store where she worked. On Easter Sunday, she met Rev. Dwight Moore, the divorced pastor of the Carolina United Church of Christ in rural Alamance County. While she was dating Moore, she asked him to procure some arsenic-based ant killer for her. In 1986, Reid developed what was initially diagnosed as a case of shingles. He was hospitalized in April of that year, and died on October 7, 1986. Doctors indicated the cause of death was Guillain–Barré syndrome. In 2010, Moore said he still suffers from tremors in his hands and legs in his first exhumations of his first husband.

Investigators also discovered that Blanche had attempted to change herself the principal beneficiary of Moore’s pension in order to make herself the first beneficiary of her first ex-husband’s pension. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and the police were notified by the hospital of Moore’s toxicology results. The results came back on March 13, showing Moore had the lethal dose of arsenic in his system- the most arsenic found in a living patient in the hospital history. However, Moore had survived and never regained full full strength. The Kroger lawsuit was settled one year later. Blanche and Moore began seeing each other publicly shortly after Reid’s death. They planned to marry, but Blanche was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987. The wedding date was pushed back to November 1988, but Moore developed a mysterious intestinal ailment that required two surgeries to correct. On April 19, 1989, the couple were married and honeymooned over a long weekend in New Jersey.