The life and crimes of an individual currently on death row or Research Paper

The life and crimes of an individual currently on death row or priviously executed in North Carolina - Research Paper Example Prior to the murders that she committed, Blanche had no record of previous crimes. She was an ideal human being, â€Å"a wife and mother, deeply religious by most accounts, [and] a pillar of the community (Hiles, 2005).† She had no past convictions and was the last person anyone would suspect of committing such horrific crimes, which is perhaps why she was able to get away with it for so many years. When she hurried and married the first man to ask her, Jim Taylor, no second thought was given. People assumed, and Blanche confirmed, that the marriage might have been rushed, but it was her quickest escape from her dysfunctional, bordering on abusive, family. Blanche and Jim were happily married for quite some time, and two children were the result of their love. After ten years, though, Jim turned more and more to alcohol and less to his wife, revealing shades of a past that Blanche had thought she had left behind her when she moved out of her father’s home. To make up for her husband’s gradual abandonment, Blanche turned to the company of many other men, involving herself in numerous affairs. Unfortunately, the affairs only satiated Blanche’s lust for a couple of years. It came down to the fact that her husband was still an alcoholic, and this brought back too many wanted memories for her to escape from by using other men. Instead of continuing to rely on affairs, Blanche decided to take a different route and rid her life of the people that were making her miserable. Blanche’s first murder was her father, the person who brought nothing but pain to his daughter’s life. When she visited him, she put arsenic into his beer, killing him. Despite doing this, though, Blanche did not feel any better about her life or her situation. She went back to the person she was currently having an affair with, Raymond Reid, a stockman at