Preacher's Girl : The Life and Crimes of Blanche Taylor Moore

An "excellent true-crime study" of a female serial killer given the death penalty for poisoning at least three men between 1973 and 1989 ( Publishers Weekly ). Widowed Blanche Taylor Moore was about to lose her second spouse to symptoms that mysteriously mirrored those that killed her first husband--as well as her previous boyfriend. When an investigation reveals arsenic poisoning, the hideous truth about the wife and mother comes to light. Did the abuse Blanche suffered as a child at the hands of her alcoholic father turn her into a murderer she became? In this riveting true crime account, critically acclaimed journalist Jim Schutze explores the harrowing motivation and chilling details of the lives, loves, and victims of North Carolina's oldest living inmate on death row. "Involving . . . chronicle of the murderous career of a Bible Belt Borgia." -- Kirkus Reviews Blanche Taylor Moore was pretty, vivacious, and sexy. Men loved her, and she appeared to love them. Too bad she was so unlucky in love. Man after man fell ill and died, in spite of her devoted nursing. Schutze draws a compelling, chilling portrait of a woman spoon-feeding poison to husbands and lovers who were dying in agony. The book is not only a fine portrait of a madwoman, it is an indictment of the hospitals where the truth was routinely ignored. There are heroes, though, in the detectives who doggedly uncovered the truth and the lawyers who fought to see Blanche convicted. There are also numerous victims, including the sons bilked out of their inheritance after Blanche convinced them that their father wanted her to have his money. Schutze also gives a good feel for the small North Carolina towns where the story unfolded, and he carries the reader through the investigation and trial without ever losing momentum.