Life's A Funny Old Dog

You wake up one morning, content in your monotonous, humdrum little life and end up going to bed that night with the new found knowledge that you are related to an “alleged” serial husband-killer. Yep, that’s right, the “Black Widow,” one Betty Johnson Neumar, is my first cousin.

You just never know when life is gonna jump up and bite you in the ass, do ya?

Where to start? Tuesday morning, as I was just about to leave the apartment for the office, a story that was running on “Good Morning America” caught my attention. The reporter was talking about this 76-year old woman in North Carolina, who the authorities had taken into custody on suspicion that she has, over the course of fifty-six years, disposed of a total of five husbands, starting as far back as 1952. The report mentioned two husbands had died in Ohio, one in Florida, and two in North Carolina.

I only caught the woman’s first name; i.e., Betty, but that…coupled with North Carolina…sufficed to trigger a vague memory. You see, back in 1981 (or thereabouts) my dad’s side of the family had a reunion in Norwood, North Carolina, then a couple of years later, we had another one. Both times, Betty and her husband, Harold Gentry, hosted the event. And, both times, I attended because I drove my parents down to North Carolina.

There were a total of eight siblings in my daddy’s family…four boys and four girls. I won’t go into the entire family tree here, just this one “twig.” My dad’s oldest sister, Elizabeth, married a man named Otis Johnson, and for a number of years, they lived just down the lane from my parents in a house on a piece of land my dad had sold them. My folks moved into, what would become, the family home…the house my daddy built…in October 1946 when my brother, Tom, was just two months old, and I was but a mere twinkle in my daddy’s cornflower-blue eyes.

Now, I was born in 1952…the same year Cousin Betty committed her first alleged act of debauchery. I’m not certain when Uncle Otis and Aunt Elizabeth moved their family away from South Point…my old hometown…but I have no memory of ever seeing them until we stopped for a brief visit in Ocala, Florida when I was a teenager. You see, there was some sort of rift between Dad and Uncle Otis that lasted a whole bunch of years and this overture on my dad’s part went a long way toward restoring family harmony.

The rest of my dad’s family was spread far and wide…two brothers in Washington (near Seattle), one brother in Eugene, Oregon, two sisters in Florida, one in Bellevue, Kentucky and the remaining sister just a few miles down the road in Sciotoville, Ohio. Fact is, I’ve got so many first, second, and third cousins that I can’t keep count, and I have never met most of them…wouldn’t know them if they walked up to me on the street. But, when Cousin Betty offered to host a family reunion that summer in 1981, I offered to take Mom and Dad.

There are probably two things that stand out for me at this family gathering. First, I was one year removed from having stomach-stapling surgery as a means to foster weight loss. During that first year, I lost a hundred pounds and…yes, I still needed to lose more…but the fact was, I looked the best I had ever looked in my life, so I was feeling pretty good about myself. Other family members, who had not seen me since the surgery were commenting about my slimmer physique, when this one female cousin – who I had never seen before and whose name I don't care enough to try to remember – after learning how much weight I had lost, laughed out loud and blurted, “God, just how much did you weigh?’

Yeah, assholes and jerks…I attract them like a freakin' magnet.

Luckily, the second memory is a much nicer one. Shortly after meeting "Cousin Tactless," my wandering eyes espied an especially attractive man…a young Tom Selleck look-alike, complete with mustache. All I could think was, “Please, God, don’t let us be related.” Of course, we were…a second cousin, but related is related in my book. We “hit it off” and spent a lot of the weekend playing euchre and talking and such. My first book had come out that spring, but I digress. So, back to the family psychopath.

As I recollect, Cousin Betty and her husband were the perfect hosts. I don’t recall anything out of the ordinary, other than the fact that they served alligator as one of their meat entrees. (Yep, I tried it and…yes…it tasted like chicken.)

A few years later, after Gentry turned up murdered in the family home, I remember Dad telling me that a lot of people, including some in her own family, suspicioned that Betty had something to do with it. Dad said Gentry had a safe in the floor of the living room and that had been emptied out and his body had been found...shot multiple times...in the doorway. Cousin Betty, who had been out of town at the time of the murder, evidently showed no surprise or remorse over her husband's demise. What a gal!

The common thread among all of Betty's husbands was the fact that they were all involved in the military. She evidently hung on to them until they ran out of money, then arranged to have them "done in" before moving on to the next one. One supposedly committed suicide while she was in the room and the latest one's cremated remains are being tested for evidence of arsenic poisoning. (I've got my very own LOCI episode unfolding right here in my own family, people. In my mind's eye, I can see Bobby investigating these crimes.) Granted, all of this has yet to be proven in a court of law, but come on...way too much coincidence.

Anyway, like I said at the beginning, I was watching GMA and the story about the "Black Widow" triggered a memory, but I thought "no way" could this person be the Betty I vaguely remembered. Not my family! So, I was fiddling around on the computer last night, the TV was on, and I was in the midst of an email to Music Wench, when my phone rang. It was my brother, Harold, and I had barely said "Hello," before I heard him say excitedly, "Turn on "Nancy Grace" on CNN."

Then he said something about Cousin Betty in North Carolina, and I told him what I had seen on GMA, but didn't think it could possibly be the same person. Talk about your small world, your really creepy, bizarre, wacked-out small world. I wrapped up my email to Music Wench, clicked on the VCR, and switched the station to CNN, and sure as life...there she was...on National Television.

After the show was over, I called him back to chat and asked him how he had known that Betty was going to be one of the topics discussed on "Nancy Grace." Turns out news of our nefarious cousin has spread like wildfire through the family. My cousin Henrietta in Florida called my cousin Mary in Michigan, who called Harold, who then called me. During the show, I happened to think about another cousin, Jim, who lives in Nevada. Jim is the "self-proclaimed" family historian, and I wondered if...amidst all this flurry of phone calls...if anyone had thought to call him. They had. Oh, goody, it's so very comforting to know that such a juicy tidbit has been documented for posterity. I guess...when push comes to shove...I'm lucky to have inherited the "depression" gene vs. the "crazy psycho" gene...hmm?

I provided links at the very beginning if anyone cares to read the CNN article or watch the ABC video. I still think this "ripped from the headlines" story will one day find its way to Law and Order or LOCI. According to the lead detective on the case, good old Cousin Betty can spin a yarn with the best of 'em. I can just see Bobby interrogating the old girl now. And if they need a family consultant for the show...I'm their gal.

Here she is...Betty Johnson Neumar. Not a bad mugshot...as far as mugshots go. I mean, do y'all remember Gary Busey's mugshot? Now, talk about scary.