Blanche Taylor Moore, The Oldest Woman on Death Row (Part 1)

Morbid - Ash Kelley & Alaina Urquhart

This episode of Morbid explores the life of Blanche Taylor Moore, the oldest woman on death row, focusing on her troubled upbringing, complex relationships, and mysterious events surrounding the death of Raymond Reed. Th

Key takeaways

• Raised in a strict, abusive household with hypocritical religious values.

Transcript preview

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. I'm Elena, and this is morbid. This is morbid. Honey, it's morbid. Honey, it's morbid post-Radio City. It is. We had a fucking blast. We did. It was amazing meeting you guys afterwards. It was so much fun. It was so much fun. It was so much fun. afterwards was you guys made me feel like Harry Styles. That's exactly what I felt like. Yeah, we were like the beals or something. It's true. It was so much fun. And my parents got to come. Ma and Papa had the best time. They did. They were beaming. Seeing my on New York, my cup is being seeing my on New York. Ma hadn't been to New York City in like decades and had like the best time. We got to like do a really fun dinner afterwards with all of our friends with all of our friends. My cup. My cup is. My cup is. see a little bit. We spent so much time planning that live show. I think the last weeks of our lives were spent just like going over every single detail. Yeah. To get it all perfect and now and there's just like the production everything. It was a bigger, it's such a big venue that it was such a bigger production. Marra production. I just have to shout them out. Maris and Sophie specifically. Geez. Truly. They were the sweetest people I think I've ever met in my last. and like took such good care of us, took such good care of the stage and like just so much went into that. Yeah. So thank you and everybody who made that happen and thank you and everybody who showed up to support us. It really means a lot to us. You guys rule. You do. But now it's time to get back to like our normal day today, our regular morbid schedule. We're back, we're home. Mercury is in Gatorade. And we saw something that said, or I should say. It wants you to slow down. I should say. I should say, I should say, I should say, I should say, I should say, I should say, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our, our to stop saying in retrograde as a student of astrology. It's retrograde. That's just saying mercury is in backwards. Yeah, it's in backwards, you know. But it's just it is. It's just backward. It's in backwards right now. And it said, according to Eliza Kelly, who I trust. Oh, yeah. Trust in Eliza Kelly. She said, it wants you to slow down. And I'm going to take that to heart, babe, because I'm like a missile right now. I need to slow down. Frank. Frankly, I'd like to slow down. She's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she, I'm exhausted and my asthma is flaring up again my asthma my asthma in the humidity it said flare up flare up give that bitch some mucus in her throat in a cough that's what it said now I don't know you sounded like Donald Trump oh I've never been more insulted in my life wow it sounded like yucky how do we move away from that any anyway anything Do you want me to, should we just get right into the story? I actually, we probably should because I do have a long one today. Yeah, let's go. And I know like Jeffrey has this timer out. Exactly. So here you go, Jeff. We're starting. Here we go. All right, so I have a two-parter. This is obviously part one. Welcome. So we're going to be talking about Blanch Taylor Moore. And Blanchor is spoiler, just to really start you off is, So before she headed to death row, she was born on February 17th, the 1933 in Concord, North Carolina. She was the fifth of seven children born to Parker, P. D. Kieser, and his wife, Flawnee. Okay, Flawnee, flauntin. All right. Now, technically, P. D. the dad was a mill worker, but his real passion was preaching the gospel. Okay. Pawne. P. P. of primitive preachers, which was kind of a group of untrained, definitely unpaid Baptist preachers who traveled around to rural locations like campgrounds to preach, which only makes me think of True Detective Season 1. Yes, absolutely. Like what a tent revivals. What an iconic season of television. True Detective is so good. I love season. Yeah, truly. Now according to author Jim Schutes, who we will link in the show notes and who we have used before, great author, PD preached an intense monotonous monotonous. song literal interpretation of the Bible. Oh, okay. I don't really know exactly what that means. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. It felt like a lot. Yeah. He always seemed to find a way to make money, which was a good thing. Yeah. All right. He was working or he got donations. Always be closing. But he rarely used that money on his own family. The work of raising children and paying the bills basically just fell completely on Flomie, who worked full time to just make do basically basically just to keep a head, I almost just set a head over their roofs, a roof over their heads. Now of the 40 or so dollars a week that she made, she always gave half of that to her husband who according to Schutz never made any secret of the fact that he was spending it all on young girls. Oh yeah, so that wasn't awesome. That was terrible. Now in 1942 when Planche was only nine years old, the family moved to Burlington. But the real reason for the move was probably because PD couldn't manage to stay employed for very long and he kind of just ran out of options for employment and conquered. Now despite his own proclivity for sex workers and gambling and drinking and generally not spending time with his own young family, he was very, very strict on his own children when he was around and he had, I don't even want to call them high standards because it's... Like impossible standards. Impossible. Impossible standards. The family didn't have much flowing in so the were usually dressed in tattered rags and hand-me-downs essentially, but he would routinely inspect their outfits to make sure that they were quote-unquote sufficiently modest. Come on. Which is also like, please, you're the biggest hypocrite ever. Yeah, you gotta, you gotta make sure. You just have to be sure that everybody's modest even though you're clearly not. Modesty is the most important thing, so important. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Fuck off. Now, the high standards didn't. kids looked like what they were wearing their appearances. They also were completely forbidden from participating in any after school activities. That's so fucked up. That actually pisses me off. Truly. Like a lot. Like what good does that do? They couldn't socialize with their friends. They couldn't join a club, nothing like that. They had to come to me sad. Right home from school and probably pray. That's, that's fucked up. Now when Blanch reached her early teen, she was finally given enough freedom to get a job in one one of the local shops downtown town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town town probably because they needed more money and less about like her happiness. Exactly. But more time outside of the house also meant that she was able to socialize a little bit. And when she was about 15 or 16, she started dating a boy named James James James. James named James. James. I suck so heavy with that James Taylor though. It's not that one. Thank you. I said of Tanglewood. Not of Tanglewood. Not of Tanglewood thing. Not of Tangle would fame. Not of thing. Not of thing. he's the voice of a generation he is he's actually I feel he's the voice of many generations I think he is too you hear a James Taylor song like a specific one that like you just hear that beginning guitar right it does like that old to be honest my nervous system has been a little alight lately yeah I'm gonna listen to a James Taylor song and I bet I'm gonna feel right as rain you probably shouldn't I think you will I will. So she met James Taylor, not V, but A, James Taylor. In a lot of ways, James and Blanche did seem like a really good fit for each other. In public, he was a good Christian boy, he doted on his mama, he did well in school. But in private, he loved a crass joke and a cold beer. So he had two sides to him. Yeah. Within a few weeks of starting their relationship, James introduced Blanche to his family, which was kind of a revelation for her, because she knew most people came from stable and happy homes. seen one up close or experienced one. That's so sad. It is really sad but the cool thing was that in the beginning of their relationship she kind of like enmeshed in this family and they loved her. I love that and they supported her and she like got her cup filled that way. Nice. Now by that time she had actually quit school and was just always looking for a good reason not to be home at her house so she spent a lot of time at the Taylor house and apparently her and James's mom, I was very close. When it came to James's relationship with Blanch, I told you the good things about him. But it was also hard not to see the similarities between her boyfriend James and her father. James wasn't dismissive, he wasn't controlling, not in the way that her dad was, but he was a drinker and he did love to gamble. And he was also at times, according to Schutz, sentimental, childish, and given to eruptions of a violent temper. That's not great. He had very. good facets of his personality. But he had flaws and a lot of flaws. Some real flaws as we all do but he really needed to figure out how to rain those. Yeah when you're when your flaws start to you know becoming violent and when they start like messing with someone else like affecting someone else yeah those are flaws you gotta take care of. That's the thing you know so not long after the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 James was drafted and he was sent to the Pacific to serve in the army. He returned a year to Blanch and they got married on May 29th, 1952. At the same time he found work restoring and refinishing fine furniture, which I feel like would be such a fun job. Yeah, I love furniture videos on Tik-Toc. Yeah, I feel like that would be very like a fulfilling. Yeah, and like a sort of thing at the same time too. He was really, really good at the job, but the income was modest. It really was barely enough to cover the bills of two people. So when Blanch gave birth to their daughter in their daughter in the family really started to struggle financially. But never went to shy away from hard work. Soon after her daughter was born, Blanch got a job as a checkout clerk at the local Kroger grocery store. And she was an immediate hit with all of the customers. A former co-worker, Brenda Green told a reporter in 1989. She was always pleasant, always outgoing to the customers. And she wasn't just a hit with the customers. She was really popular with the men who came into the store. She had I mean a way about her. I mean. I mean. her name's Blanch i know it's just you know comes with the territory it does uh... author she'd said men lined up behind her register just so they could look at her she's saying to each one in her busy little chitter chittering bird voice always with some expression of concern for their personal affairs wow she was a little bit of a flirt i was gonna say she was digging she was digging it she was doing her thing i know nothing about this case by the way so she's the oldest woman on death row so there's that she was that she was a she was she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a she was a Yeah. So at that time the rules for Kroger employees were strictly segregated. Women filled the customer service jobs in the front of the store. Men worked the management, the stockroom, butcher rolls in the back. Okay. Now given the hierarchy, the highest that a female employee at Kroger could generally expect to make, like the highest position was head cashier. Okay. It was kind of like a front end manager position. They were like responsible for supervising the cashiers and the bag boys just keeping. everything in check. We've seen them. Yeah. Now that was the job we love them we love them. Yeah. That was the job that Blanch was really determined to get and when she said her mind to something she did usually achieve it. Now I said that the customers loved her. Co-workers not so much. E. outwardly she seemed to get along with people pretty fine you know but a lot of her coworkers didn't like the way that she played obvious office politics. Oh. And they saw that she was very clearly on climbing the ladder to get that head cashier position. Which like that's bound to happen. It is not to happen. Any kind of like corporate or you know any retail environment. Well and people are all vying for the same job so that it kind of creates like a it's competitive. Not a great environment. Yeah. But that wasn't just it. Some of the cashier suspected that Blanche was stealing from the company. Oh that's not good. According to Shoots, Blanche had a pension for using loner registers and for moving around using other checkers drawers, rather than, rather than following, rather than following. procedures designed so that each cashier would check out on a register that was entirely her own responsibility for each shift. Eek, she just kind of floated amongst them. Yeah. Now despite the rumors of her embezzling small sums of money, by 1959 Blanch did work her way up at Kroger and she got that head cashier position. Oh yeah, she got it. And the promotion couldn't have come at a better time because just a few months after she moved up, she gave birth to the couple second daughter. was an asset. Oh, hey. You know, it seemed things were going pretty good for Blanch in 1959. Seems like it. Yeah, but her personal life was starting to unravel a bit. That same year, her mother, Flawnee filed for divorce from PD, citing her husband's abandonment as the reason. P. D. Kaiser had basically left his wife and children a few years earlier to, quote, find himself a younger woman. Oh, excuse you. And he also didn't contribute a dime to the support of their children since he left them. Now even though all of that is true, that he was just a prick, at the time going through a divorce would have been a pretty shameful experience, which is silly, but it just was. And sharing the details of her failed marriage in such a public form wouldn't just be embarrassing, but humiliating, not just for Flani, but also for the children like Blanch, even like the adult children. Now luckily the judge was sympathetic