Judy Buenoano

Judy Buenoano

Judias "Judy" Buenoano (born Judias Welty, also known as Judias Goodyear, also known as Judias Morris) (April 4, 1943 - March 30, 1998), was a convicted murderer who was executed for the 1971 murder of her husband James Goodyear. She was also convicted for the 1980 murder of her son Michael Goodyear, and of the 1983 attempted murder of her fiancé John Gentry. She is also acknowledged to have been responsible for the 1978 death of her boyfriend Bobby Joe Morris in Colorado; however, by the time authorities made the connection between Buenoano and Morris, she had already been sentenced to death in the state of Florida.

She is also believed to have been involved in a 1974 murder in Alabama; on his deathbed, Bobby Joe Morris confessed to having participated in that murder, but police were unable to find enough evidence to press charges. She was also suspected in the 1980 death of her boyfriend Gerald Dossett. After her arrest, Dossett's body was exhumed and analysed for signs of arsenic poisoning. No charges were laid in that case. Buenoano was the first woman to be executed in Florida since 1848 (when a slave named Celia was hanged for killing her master), and was only the third woman to be executed in the United States since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976. Nationally, she was the first woman executed in the electric chair since 1957, when Rhonda Belle Martin was electrocuted in Alabama.