Many in Alamance County knew Blanche Kiser Taylor Moore as a godly woman who regularly attended church, with a grandmotherly appearance. Still, something more sinister lurked deep within the North Carolina woman. In many ways, Moore would be the last person you’d suspect to be a convicted murderer and a possible serial killer.
But today, the 92-year-old woman resides at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh as prisoner #0288088, awaiting execution for her crimes. Moore has been at the prison since November 16, 1990, and is North Carolina’s oldest woman on death row.
Moore is often referred to as “The Black Widow”, but what led the average, neighborhood lady to the prison will leave you terror-stricken.
Blanche Kiser was born in Concord as the daughter of a preacher, who would later relocate to Alamance County. She seemed to live an everyday life, attending church and working in a nearby Kroger’s grocery store in Burlington.
Taylor was married in 1952 and eventually found herself a widow in 1973. Later, she began dating a divorced store manager named Reid. Blanche rose to be a head cashier, the highest position a woman could hold at the time, and most thought she was a good employee. However, other employees said she was somewhat “vindictive” and “two-faced.”
Moore and Reid worked together for many years inside the grocery store, beginning in 1962, but the pair didn’t become romantic until 1979.
Reid was described as a good man who moved around quite a bit during 1979 and 1980 until he took the store manager position in Winston-Salem. Blanche was more of a homebody who preferred to stay closer to home and finally left the grocery life on October 17, 1985.
A couple of months later, after she quit her position, Blanche invited Reid over on New Year’s Eve. It seemed like a typical night as she served her homemade potato soup. Unfortunately, the next day, Reid developed several cases of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
Reid would die less than five months later at Baptist Hospital.
Soon, Moore met a divorced pastor named Dwight Moore. The two began meeting, sharing meals, but the relationship had to be kept quiet due to a pending lawsuit.
On April 19, 1989, the couple were married and had a honeymoon in New Jersey. But on April 28, 1989, Dwight developed the same mysterious sickness as Reid and ended up in the hospital. Soon, the tests revealed arsenic, nearly 20 times the lethal dose in his system.
Soon, an investigation was launched. During the interview process, Moore stated that Taylor and Reid felt depressed and even suggested they had taken the arsenic themselves, but investigators found her allegations to be highly improbable.
On July 18, 1989, Moore was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Taylor and Reid.
Moore was found guilty on November 14, 1990, and on November 17, the jury recommended death. On January 18, 1991, the presiding judge agreed with the jury and ordered Moore to die by lethal injection.
Written By: John G. Clark Jr.