'Black Widow' Bitten

By Chris Taylor Monday, Mar. 30, 1998
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STARKE, Fla: The Black Widow is dead. Former nail salon owner Judy Buenoano, who poisoned her husband, drowned her paralyzed son and tried to kill her fianc with a car bomb, met her fate in a Flordia electric chair at 7 a.m. Monday morning. She became the first woman to be executed in the state in 150 years, but there the comparison with Karla Faye Tucker ends. Buenoano, 57, showed no remorse for her killings. Prosecutors, who gave the Black Widow her creepy-crawly nickname, say she bumped off her family for the insurance money. Like Tucker, Buenoano said she was off to see Jesus. This time, neither the Pope nor Jerry Falwell tried to intercede.

And there were no regrets from the state of Florida, either. The use of the electric chair as an execution tool was decried last year after a spate of fires prompted a cruel and unusual punishment investigation. But with three inmates going to the chair in the last eight days, and another due tomorrow, Old Sparky isnt destined for the museum any time soon.