Police suspect 76-year old Betty Johnson Neumar, aka Betty Neumar, murdered five different husbands to finance her out-of-control spending habit.
The Betty Neumar arrest came after her former brother-in-law Al Gentry dogged police about his brother's unsolved murder that happened July 14, 1986.
Harold Gentry's body, riddled by multiple gunshot wounds, was found inside the couple's home and Betty Neumar was out of town that day, but showed absolutely no emotion when she got back, Al Gentry said.
When Betty pulled up to the house in a quiet neighborhood that was surrounded by flashing lights and filled with police officers, he recalled, she blurted out that she had been in Augusta, Ga the previous night - before he even said a word.
"If she had gotten out of that car with $@+++ in her eyes and asked me why would anybody kill Harold, I would never have suspected her at all," he said. "That's where she slipped up."
Betty Neumar was charged with a single count of solicitation of murder in Gentry's death and is being held on $500,000 bond.
At her first court appearance, prosecutors said Betty Johnson Neumar tried to hire several people to kill her husband, offering one potential hit man anal sex and a pickup truck to do the job.
But Gentry's persistence may have led investigators to a far more chilling discovery about Betty Neumar. After arresting her, authorities realized that five times since the 1950s, she was married, and each union ended with the death of her husband.
Authorities say they've notified law enforcement officials where Betty Johnson Neumar is believed to have lived with four other husbands who died mysteriously when their money ran out. So far, no one has said whether the deaths are suspicious, but some officials are reopening the cold cases.
Neumar's most recent dead husband, John Neumar, was to 79-year-old John Neumar, who died in October. The couple had earlier filed bankruptcy listing debts of $206,300 on 43 credit cards. They listed $14,355 in assets and had a combined monthly income of only about $1,800.
Authorities in Betty Neumar's hometown of Augusta, Ga., are examining her last husband's death, and detectives went to her home two weeks ago and seized an urn with his ashes, said Richmond County, Ga., sheriff's investigator Lt. Scott Peebles.
John Neumar's cause of death was listed as sepsis - an illness caused by a bacterial infection of the body's blood and tissues - and his body was cremated shortly after his death.
Peebles said investigators would test the remains to see if there "were any other factors that contributed to his death," including whether he was poisoned by arsenic, which can cause sepsis-like symptoms.
"We're not going to rule anything out until we get the results back," he said
jeez. sex and a pick up truck eh?
