Blanche Moore and her attorney in a photo taken during her trial in Winston-Salem.
ON TV: “Infamous Black Widows,” CNBC, 9 p.m. Wednesday. Cable channel 30 locally.
I hadn’t been a city editor at the Times-News very long when I first heard the name Blanche Taylor Moore. In the days, months and years that followed I’d come to know it well. Probably too well. Blanche Moore, it seems, never goes completely away.
The year was 1989. I moved from sports writer to weekend editor in 1988. In 1989 I was promoted to city editor. I wasn’t really ready for what was to come — not by a longshot. None of our mainly young reporters was either. Maybe no one could be.
It started when the executive editor at the time, Don Bolden told us about a pastor from a local church who had become ill while honeymooning in New Jersey. His ailment was a mystery so far. Doctors were puzzled about what might have happened to the Rev. Dwight Moore. I had one of our reporters, Alex Martin, check it out. He was shaken after talking to the pastor’s new bride.
Alex was the color of notebook paper when he walked to my desk. The new bride, Blanche Moore, had become upset by his call. She would only say that her husband was, “very, very sick,” before hanging up in sobs. Across the way sat Jim Wicker. Jim wasn’t a green rookie when it came to reporting. He’d not only been around the block but he wrote the story when the block was constructed.
Jim looked at Alex through a haze of cigarette smoke and announced that Alex “shouldn’t worry about it because the wife probably did it and I’ll bet she poisoned him.”
In the following days and weeks it would become clear that Wicker was perhaps onto something. Blanche Moore emerged as the leading suspect and the story became this ever-growing boulder careening downhill. Despite the fact that she wasn’t charged for weeks, print and TV media reported exhaustively — and at times irresponsibly — on what was clearly a major story about a woman who possibly poisoned men with arsenic. Burlington police, the investigation led by Steve Lynch who is now with the District Attorney’s office, were overwhelmed with requests for investigations into the deaths of those whose paths crossed with Blanche Moore. Graves were exhumed and bodies tested for traces of the poison. Families were torn and longtime community divisions created.
The media swarm grew. Newspapers from around the nation arrived to write their own stories about Blanche Taylor Moore. All the major networks arrived at one time or another. Since every reporter was looking for fresh news, competition to unveil new facts became hyper-intense. Our reporters, Frank Maley, Alex Martin and L.D. Ashmore were under tremendous pressure. Sleep was in short supply for all of us.
The story took dozens of bizarre twists and turns that didn’t end when the case went to trial in Forsyth County where Blanche Moore was eventually charged and convicted for the murder of Raymond Reid, a former boyfriend who lived in Kernersville. Even the prosecutors found themselves involved in odd circumstances — including accusations of book or TV deals prior to the trial. Her story has been produced twice for TV movies and has been chronicled in at least two books. Elizabeth Montgomery of “Bewitched” portrayed Blanche Moore in one movie that crops up on Lifetime every so often.
Blanche Moore remains on Death Row in the North Carolina’s Central Prison and continues to maintain that she’s innocent. She was the subject of a fascinating interview and story by our current managing editor Jay Ashley. Jay covered her trial for another publication. L.D. Ashmore,who now lives in Georgia, covered the trial for the Times-News.
Now Blanche Moore’s story is part of a CNBC documentary, Infamous Black Widows. It looks at nearly a dozen cases about women who killed by poison. Oddly enough, North Carolina’s other famous arsenic poisoner, Velma Barfield, is not included.
I’ve been back in Burlington long enough to know when Cary Allred’s going to call me and complain about something in a story. I can almost set my watch by it.
Snow and sleet began to fall on Alamance County early Friday evening and nothing has really been right since. Street crews found more ice than expected, clearing roads became a nightmare and some spots didn’t get touched at all until Monday. Public information was scarce from government agencies, decisions weren’t made in a timely manner and communications broke down everywhere.
After two days of home confinement due to the ice and snow I had no delusions that my street was icy. I could see that much from my front door.
Circulation director Doug Johnson said all of our carriers picked up Sunday’s (and in some cases Saturday’s) newspapers for delivery, a few, though, picked them up at daybreak instead of before midnight under our earlier than normal deadline.
Newspapers around the Piedmont are struggling to serve their customers. I just got a note on a previous post from Carolyn Lloyd that she had not received her Times-News in two days. One of our photographers, Brad Coville, reported the same. I apologize in both — and all cases — where this is true. And I’m sure it’s a high number.
Brad reports that it’s tough stopping vehicles on an incline or at traffic signals. He suspects that’ll only get worse as the night progresses into Sunday morning and temperatures plunge into single-digits.
