Snapped: Women Who Murder - Betty Neumar

Episode Date: February 28, 2021

The cold-case shooting of a Norwood, North Carolina man leaves his family shattered and without answers. After two decades pass the investigation resumes only to uncover mysterious deaths spanning a half-century.Season 26, Episode 21Originally aired: January 12, 2020See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wonder East Podcast American Scandal. Our newest series looks at the story of OxyContin, a popular painkiller that helps spur an epidemic of addiction and drug abuse, in which prompted a broad campaign to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable. Listen to American Scandal on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. After 20 years together, a North Carolina couple were living their best life with no sign of slowing down. He had served his time in the Miller Territory. He was going to enjoy life.

She was funny. She had a little fascinist tour. I would describe him as the perfect neighbor. But when gunshots ring out at the couple's back door, their life together is shattered. He was clueless and chast. He's too headless pie, it is my fault. Multiple gunshot wounds, meaning the killer was going to make absolutely sure this man was dead.

The search for the murderer spans generations and uncovers multiple victims. I just stared at it. 52 years and five dead men. I love murder dead by suspicious circumstances. The first one was shot in the back of his head. The second one paid not only a peer. The third one I know was shot.

The fourth one was shot. And the last one, they say, maybe he was poor was him. He was cremated before they knew he was dead. Ten police catch a serial killer, a half century in the making. All kinds of things went to the lab. There was a governor's reward. We just trying to keep digging, keeping every turn we took

to do some crazy place. July 14, 1986, Norwood, North Carolina. 35-year-old Emory Lehu and his family get a phone call. I was, Monday afternoon, and by the time I got through supper, and everything did, the phone rang. On the line is a concerned relative of Emory's 48-year-old neighbor, Harold Gentry. Harold was one of those people that he never missed work. And when Harold did not show up for work on Monday,

it was very unusual. I didn't know what to think, really. I said, well, yeah, just go see what's going on, you know? The Gentry's lived in a single-story ranch-style brick home in Norwood. It was seated in a royal area. The glass-sliding door was open. And I went in there, and I saw a harrow laying in the floor.

He was just inside the door, laying face down. I went in there and I saw Harold laying in the floor. He was just inside the door laying face down. He was clustered in his chest. He still had his pipe in his mouth. There was blood there right in his head. That's quite a bit of blood there, you know? Police are immediately called to the scene. The law enforcement agencies responded, EMS responded.

I stayed in it to the sheriff's department called there. Then other people started coming in, the law enforcement stuff. I just got out of the way. It's clear to first responders that it's too late for any life-saving efforts. He was shot many times.

Paral Gentry was dead. Born in 1938, Paral Gentry grew up one of eight kids in Norwood, North Carolina. He just always said they were brought up pretty poor. They lived there in Norwood for a long time at this older house. Mr. Gentry was a sharecropper. Ms. Gentry had one of the hardest jobs of all of taking care of eight children along the way.

Even though they may not have had many material things, there was never a lack of love in that household. It was a good childhood. It made them stronger, and how everybody had to work to make the family come through back then. As you grew into a young man, Harold looked beyond the few options that Norwood offered. In Stanley County, if you weren't a mechanic or something like that, nine times out of ten,

you were going to end working up in the mill, and he didn't want to do that. Serving his country was Harold's ticket out. When he got out of high school, he went straight into the army. He was stationed a lot around El Paso and his work at a white sand's missile base. In 1967, the army stationed Harold in sunny Key West, Florida. It was there that the 29-year-old GI met a widow to single mother, 36-year-old Betty Sills. My mom cut his hair because she did hair down in Key West as well. And that's how they met. My dad had lost the top of his ear and a car accident.

And he would just be like, don't make this here look like that one. She said, oh, don't worry, I won't. Betty was born in 1931, not far from Cincinnati, Ohio. She was born in Irton, Ohio. She went to school there. And then my grandfather took the family and moved down to Florida. Because my grandfather, he worked with the grilled road.

Harold was drawn to the working mom's mixture of Lux's strength and sass. Betty always wore lots of jewelry, lots of makeup. She always looked real fancy. She drapes herself in gold and silver and jewels. She was funny and feisty. She had no feistyness to her. Now, the one thing that I would say about Betty

and how do I say this nicely, her language would make a sailor blush. They were married in January of 1968 and I came into the picture in December of 1968. Wherever the army sent Harold, Betty and their family followed. I spent most of my younger life overseas in Germany, with my dad and my mom,

because he was still in the army. They were great parents. I got to travel to Switzerland and Greece and all kinds of different countries. After two decades of service, Harold decided it was time for a change. The search for a place to put down permanent routes led the couple back to Harold's hometown, Norwood, North Carolina.

They moved to Norwood in 1976. They started building their home and moved in sometime in 1977. They were given the land by Harold's sister and her husband to build on. Since Harold had grown up in Norwood and Harold knew everybody. He knew, I mean, there were still a lot of people that knew him and was glad for him to have come back to the Norwood community.

He had served his time in the military and he was going to enjoy life. And he just worked a lot of job for a little spending money, and to keep him busy, keep him going. He worked for Royal Chemical Company, and they were some of the best bosses that a person could have. He was a hard worker, sort of like a workaholic,

you'd like to be busy, you know? He was a good guy. One thing about Harold, he always had a pipe in his mouth. He loved his pipe. After nearly 20 years of raising a family together, the two empty nesters, now 48 and 55, happily recommitted to their community and to each other.

If you asked me what type of neighbor Harold was, I would describe him as the perfect neighbor. My mom was very giving. Other people came first. She loves and help other people. She was very big on her family. They were the folks. Harold was always there if you ever needed anything.

He'd stop wanting to do it to come help you do whatever. In July of 1986, Harold and Betty were looking forward to many more years together. She loved her flowers. We always had beautiful flowers hanging around. We had over an acre garden, and both of them would be out in the garden work. That's one thing they really had in common.

They had a great time doing it. Until a lethal shooting at the gentry's home changes their lives forever. Hero gentry was shot multiple times on multiple areas of his body, both posterior and anterior. It was clear that Hero Gentry had been murdered. The question was, who did it and how they came to be better? Coming up, Detective Zero-Win on a motive that seems obvious.

It was like a frenzy to attack. There were things that were overturned. It appeared to be ransacked. And police cast a net to trap a quartet of killers. Four males in a yellow Mercedes, they were pulling in and out of her driveway. She was afraid of them. On July 14, 1986, a neighbor discovers herald gentry shot to death just inside his He'd been shocked in front first, and then three or four times in the back. They shot him.

He went down, apparently went face first. The investigation suspect that Harold may have been ambushed. Came in the back door, looked as though he was attempting to turn the light on him. In my opinion, the first shot probably hit him in the hand. There was a sunken living room in that house, and the way that Harold Gentry is shot and killed, it's consistent with the shooter having been in a lower lying area. Had Harold stumbled into a burglary in progress, There were drawers pulled out in the kitchen cabinets.

There were drawers pulled out in the bedroom, from dressers, everything that you can imagine. There were things that were overturned. It was like a frenzy to attack. And the ransacking, in a case like this, is consistent with a botched home invasion that he came in while there was a burglary in process. However, investigators find no signs of forced entry.

It's the type of community where everyone knows everyone and where they lived, I wouldn't expect them to lock the doors. It would be surprising. to expect them to lock the doors, it would be surprising. Investigators on the scene turned to Harold's neighbors for information. Of course, you're going to campus the neighborhood immediately. Did you hear anything? Did you see anything? Talk to the neighbors. Emory LeHue had seen Betty and Harold that weekend. Probably three or four o'clock on Saturday afternoon.

I saw her leave in her truck, but Harold, he was still about there, tremorin' in the backyard. Then the next day, Emory heard a very distinctive sound. I'll go to the back door to go in. That's when I heard some shots. In rural Norwood, gunfire is rarely a surprise. I looked over that way. I didn't see nothing. I went and told my wife, you know, it's mighty dark for them to be target priced in this late.

That's older shots were heard. Then I didn't tell you anymore about it. Emory wasn't the only neighbor who heard gunfire on Sunday. They talked about here in gunshots all the time from that area because neighbors did target practice and it would not be unusual to hear gunshot. When asked where Betty is now, neighbors say she has been out of town getting her truck serviced. They had to find her, and it was 1986. There were limited resources.

There were not cell phones. There were so many different limitations that they had. They were able to get a hold of her and finally notify her. And when she received the call that her husband was found dead in their home, she drove back to the crime scene three hours away. With signs of a robbery inside the house, detectives want to know what someone might have been after. It turns out Harold had a poorly kept secret.

There were some people around the area that had an indication that Mr. Gentry had some valuables around. He worked on his antique clocks, and he bought and sold other antique clocks. I mean, he had mantle clocks, he had cuckoo clocks, he had the large floor model clocks. Had the secret of Harold's valuable collection reached someone with ill intentions? As police wrap up their interviews,

Betty Gentry pulls up to the house. Everybody was still there when she came up because she rode out of the car. Betty explains to police that she had, in fact, driven to Georgia to get her truck serviced. She drove a very expensive, duly truck. It was like the only duly truck in the entire county. She was one of the only people with one.

She drove the truck to Marietta, Georgia, and stayed with her friends. When asked if she knew of anyone who could have shot Harold inside their home, a visibly shaken Betty says yes. She reported to the police that she was experiencing trouble with four males in a yellow Mercedes, and they were pulling in and out of her driveway

on multiple occasions, and she was afraid of them. She thought they were going to burglarize her home. Investigators pounce on their first solid lead. Norwood is a very small town. It's very rural. It would have been very difficult for a yellow Mercedes to be in that area and not be noticed by anyone else. Stanley County Detectives scour DMV registries

and reach out to neighboring police forces for help. But the Mercedes and the potential killers inside it have vanished without a trace. They tried to track it down in other parts of North Carolina, but that could not be found. At the same time, investigators put Betty's alibi to the test. There was a receipt from the car repair location where she took the truck for tires.

And they also called the man who did the work on the truck and verified that it was her. Weeks turned to months. And despite investigators' efforts, Harold's murder case begins to go cold. They tried all kinds of things. All kinds of things went to the lab. There was a governor's reward.

There was reward money. They went hard and strong after this case. It was very devastating to the Norwood community. They were frustrated because it was just like, you know, why hasn't this been solved? Why aren't there answers? For years, the unsolved murder continues to haunt Harold's family. How did I grieve my father?

I went straight into the military myself. I went into the army. I think the army helped me grieve some. Harold's brother, Al, has spent two decades struggling to keep a seemingly unsolvable case from going cold. Our gentry had been on this case, essentially since it happened. My husband. He was obsessed with it.

He talked with people. Anybody that would listen, you know. Al is banking on an impending local election to move his brother's murder investigation off the back burner. During the campaign process of the Sheriff's Race in 2006, Al approached Rick Burris. He went to him and he said, Rick, I want you to solve my brother's murder. And Rick said, what are you talking about?

And so Al told him, you know, he said, well, I'll look at him. Coming up, 22 years later, Harold's unsolved murder gets another shot at justice. First thing I thought when I looked at the photos was that this looks staged. And a disturbing pattern suggests a serial killer may have been operating for decades. It was like a blast of cold air hit my chest, knocking the wind out of me.

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and business partner, Caroline Ellison, who later admitted something had gone very wrong inside their operation. From Bloomberg and Wondery comes Spellcaster, a new six-part docu-series about the meteoric rise and fall of FTX and its founder, Sam Bankman Free. Follow Spellcaster wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, prime members, you can listen to episodes Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. It's been more than 20 years since husband and father Harold Gentry was gunned down in his North Carolina home. And still, the killer has not been found.

But now, freshly elected sheriff Rick Burris plans to make good on a campaign promise he made to Harold's brother, Al. He said, when I was campaigning, Al asked me if I was elected, would I please look at his brother's case? And I said yes. So I'm keeping my word. Rick Burris was keeping his word. He hands the cold case off to DA's office investigator, Dr. Laura Petler. He came in, he said, I have a case. It's an old homicide from 1986. Death of a guy named Harold Gentry and lived in Norwood.

Dr. Petler and Stanley County Sheriff's detective, Scott Williams, begin to comb through a mountain of two decade old evidence. I remember the first thing I thought when I looked at the photos was that this looked staged. I think it was staged to look like a robbery. There was a lot of excessive ransacking. There were like four things that a burglarer would not normally steal because they were menial.

Lennox, Crystal, and like something off the nightstand, it didn't make any sense. The things that were missing were inconsistent with the level of ransacking. So for me, this is a staged home invasion. Homicide. And the sheer number of shots fired into Harold's body suggests a killer with an agenda.

Multiple gunshot wounds, meaning you're going to die. I'm not going to just shoot you from the front. I'm going to shoot you from the back, too, to make sure that you're dead. It was an execution. It wasn't random. Shoot and try and shoot your way out of the robbery. The investigators turned to computer resources

unavailable to police in 1986. When we started running background investigations, the first one, of course, we ran, was Betty Gentry, the wife of the deceased. When we ran her, their relationship graph comes up. That's where it was discovered that she was connected to multiple men. And they were all deceased.

I thought it was a mistake. At first, when I saw the graphs, and I was like, who are all these people? Are they brothers? Are they related to her in another way? Could they be uncles? With a little more digging, they discover that the dead men aren't just Betty's relatives.

They are all her husbands. When we looked into each one, the link was a marriage license between the two parties, or something that was indicative of them having an intimate relationship. Until we started digging, yeah, infaculty,

that she'd been married five times and that all of them were dead. I just stared at it. 52 years and five dead men who were married to the same woman was it an unfortunate coincidence that these things happened to your husbands. I just knew that we had a woman connected to our case that had five dead husbands,

one of him was Harold Gentry. On May 19, 2008, Dr. Petler and Detective Williams head to Augusta, Georgia to the last known address of Harold Gentry's 76-year-old widow, now living under the name Betty Neumar. She didn't answer the door. We walk around the house, and she was in the back doing some flower gardening.

The sunlight was going through her white hair. She looked so angelic. And the first thing I thought when I saw her, that is everyone's grandmother, that is my grandmother. And so we introduced ourselves, I showed her my credentials. We proceeded to just talk with her about what she knew about Harold's case.

If she had heard any new information about it, we were re-investigating it. She immediately turned cold. It was like a blast of cold air hit my chest, knocking the wind out of me. Detective starred with questions about her first spouse, Clarence Malone. I asked her specifically questions about her other husbands

and she responded that Clarence Malone had been shot in a robbery. According to Betty, her second husband, James Flynn, died in a tragic accident. She told us he froze to death while sleeping in a truck on the docks of New York. Betty's next marriage to Navy officer Dick Sills ended in a different kind of tragedy.

When I asked her specifically, tell me about Dick Sills. She said he committed suicide, and she pointed to her body underneath her arm like this area, and she said he shot himself right here. Then after Dick Sills died, Betty met Carol Gentry in Florida. Finally, Betty married John Neumar in 1991, five years after Harold's death.

And in October of 2007, Betty found herself a widow for the fifth time. John Neumar had died of sepsis. Sepsis to my knowledge is where the body goes septic from a multiple organ failure type situation. The two detectives can't find any glaring holes in Betty's story. She answered everything pretty logically.

There was nothing out of the ordinary. And then we thanked her, and we left. The fact remains that whether it was by accident, coincidence, or foul play, marrying Betty became a death sentence for five different men. Now, she could be the most unlucky person in the world. That's entirely possible. But that's just odd, and you can't discount it.

You have to look at that. Police dive deep into the other four deaths in hopes of solving the mystery around the deadly trail that follows Betty. Every turn we took, took us to some crazy place that you had to dig through a lot of stuff to get what we were trying to find out. While living in Ohio, Betty's first husband,

Clarence Malone, was shot during a robbery, but that robbery murder happened years after he and Betty parted ways. Clarence Malone died around 1970. It was well after her divorce. Six or seven years at best since they had divorced. He got married twice during that time. And so she wasn't even a suspect in that one. As for Betty's second husband, James Flynn,

investigators can't turn up anything official to explain his deaths. She said that he died on a peer in New York. She said that they were separated. We've never been able to confirm a lot. There is a death certificate for James Flynn in New York. And that's about as far as we were able to confirm a lot. There is a death certificate for James Flynn in New York, and that's about as far as we were able to get with that. There's no evidence in this case that Betty Gentry

Neumar was involved in the death of Clarence Malone. There's no evidence in this case that Betty Gentry was involved in James Flynn's death either. In this case, that Betty Gentry was involved in James Flynn's death either. Investigators reach out to NCIS about husband number three, Naval Petty Officer Dick Sills. According to Betty's statements at the time, the couple had been drinking for hours on the day of Dick's death. They came home from the bar, and were fighting.

They were arguing. They went into their bedroom. Police responded to a frantic 911 call from Betty. She told first responders that her husband Dick shot himself. The local police came in and ruled a suicide. The Navy just took their word for it and then do any investigation. Investigators in 2008 find one detail that calls Betty's account into

question. There were two shots in the report from NCIS. It's been pretty good that if you try to commit suicide with a gun, if you shoot yourself the first time you don't die, your body automatically goes into a defensive mode where you throw the gun down. So you never see anybody commit suicide by shooting yourself twice. So now all of a sudden, it's the, you know, this culmination of weird circumstances

that have suspicious around it, Betty. Investigators turn their attention to Betty's fifth and final husband, John Neumar. John Neumar's children eagerly agreed to be interviewed about a death that has troubled them for years. At the time, they did not even know he died, and they read about his death in the newspaper.

She had him cremated immediately. Had Betty been trying to hide something by cremating John before even notifying his children, and if so, what? Coming up, investigators peer into the past for answers. And a poisoning death, one of the best pieces of evidence you got of the murder is the body. And a long, forgotten encounter returns to haunt a killer.

Look, this woman that I don't even know is asking me to kill her husband. In early 2008, investigators have just discovered that Harold Gentry's widow Betty married five times over 52 years, and each one of her husband's subsequently died under unusual circumstances. When you start looking at the people who were close to her who died as a result of violence and gunshots, it's, it's odd. As investigators learn more about each marriage and each death, they detect a common connecting thread. What would have been the motive? And the pattern that I saw in was when she began to have problems with them. So her motive was to resolve her problems.

Remember she had a divorce from the first one, but that's the last husband she ever divorced. All the rest of them died. When the conflict arose, they all ended up dead. As long as they were giving her money, and she was able to shop and do all this, she was fine. But until they put the brakes on something

or had an argument or whatever, then they ended up dead. After conducting interviews with Harold and Betty's old friends, detectives learn Betty might have been living beyond their means. Harold and Betty were having a lot of trouble because Betty constantly spent money. And Harold didn't like the fact that she would just run them practically into bankruptcy. Harold was staying in a travel trailer in the back of the own house.

They had sort of separated. He would come in and out of the house to go eat, go to the bathroom, to take showers, things of that nature, but they were going to a rough patch, as I recall. Even with a motive in hand, investigators are unable to connect Betty to the deaths of any of her other four husbands. Investigators continue meticulously analyzing the case file on Harold's murder, and finally reach the break they've been looking for.

It's an interview from 1986 with a Norwood business owner, Alan Lawrence. In 1986, Alan Lawrence operated a store, the store sold swimming pools and hot tubs. The reports that we had from 1986 were that three weeks prior to Harold's death, Al reported that Betty Gentry had asked him to kill her husband.

They had the witness that came forward saying, look, this woman that I don't even know is asking me to kill her husband. He didn't have a deep friendship with her or know her really well. He knew her as an acquaintance. He went to this reagent. This reagent blew him off. By the time Harold was murdered, Alan Stateman had slipped through the cracks. Investigators now wonder if Betty found someone else to do her dirty work.

Investigators discover that in the weeks before Harold's death, Betty put together a large sum of cash. She is confirmed to have been collecting various portions of money from different people who owed her money for rent or property. She sold to get up to a larger substantial amount of money. And she accumulated that money over the last 30 days prior to Harold Gentry's murder. I think that she paid someone to kill her husband Harold Gentry. I think that she paid someone to kill her husband, Harold Gentry.

Based on this information, investigators do their best to elicit a confession from Betty. We tried different methods, sending people in a talk tour, undercoverers, and nothing ever worked. She was very smart about it. She really was. There was nothing really that she could get your claws into. We never found the smoking gun. Alan Lawrence's statement from 1986

couldn't put a gun in Betty's hand, but it did suggest that police might arrest her on a lesser charge. Laura came back and started telling me about the case. I just had to build up enough evidence to feel confident and bring in fourth that charge. I just wanted to hope Betty accountable for what I believe she did in 1986. We got it for solicitation to murder.

We couldn't get it from murder for high at that point. Because he turned it down, so it was just an attempt. On May 21, 2008, Betty finds a team of North Carolina and Georgia police, assembled outside her Augusta home armed with a warrant for her arrest for soliciting murder. Betty is completely flourred, shocked, ready to fight. She said, what do you mean I'm arrested?

She said she couldn't go to jail because she didn't have a job. for Lord, shocked, ready to fight. She said, what do you mean I'm arrested? She said she couldn't go to jail because she didn't have her metal comb. She didn't have her blue shampoo. Those were her exact words, standing right there. She was acting like it was almost a travel arrangement and it was very odd.

She looked dead at the detective and said, I'm not prepared to go to jail. Ready or not, Betty is arrested. -♪ Laura went in to assist with the execution of the search warrant. During the course of the search warrant of her home, she stood outside, speaking with detective. She was very pleasant. She was very nice.

She fully cooperated. There was no issue whatsoever. I photographed her home on my own. While the search team continues combing the property for evidence, investigators turn their attention to Betty. We went from the search warrant to the police station in the interview room there. Once in custody, Betty admits nothing.

She answered a lot of my questions with questions, and she was very defensive. What Betty doesn't know is that a police search of her home has turned up to potential bombshell pieces of evidence in the death of her fifth husband, John Neumar. One of the things that was found was an urn that contained the ashes of John Neumar. And a gardening shed outside the house

holds a link that just might give law enforcement the ace they'll need to convict Betty of a premeditated killing, not just solicitation of murder. Other things that were found out in her shed were chemicals that contained heavy metals, who's the best way to describe them. Was the cache of chemicals used to poison John.

And a poisoning death, one of the best pieces of evidence you got of the murder is the body. And if you can remove the body or destroy the body and get rid of it, you get rid of the evidence of the crime. And cremation is what you find in a lot of those. The Richmond County Sheriff's Office in Augusta, Georgia chose to send the cremains of John Neymar to a special laboratory in Pennsylvania that conducted heavy metal testing

on the cremains of John Neymar. Coming up, investigators hope modern forensics will seal Betty's fate. He was thrilled to die if he was hoping they'd get some justice. And the clock starts ticking faster on a 20-year-old murder case. She never couldn't make a court of yours. She's always too sick. In 2008, Betty Neumar is charged with solicitation of murder in the 1986 killing of her fourth husband, Harold Gentry. Now, detectives are hoping lab tests on the remains of her fifth husband, John Neumar,

will ensure a murder conviction for Betty. While the DA awaits the test results, Harold's brother, Al Gentry, gets news he's longed to hear for more than 20 years. When they arrested her, he was thrilled to die. He was hoping they'd get some justice. On August 8, 2008, the lab returns a verdict on their analysis of John Newmars ashes. Those test results came back.

The cremains did have heavy metals in them, but there was no quantity that could be determined. And therefore, it was inconclusive than there was nothing else that could be done. Prosecutors moved forward with the lesser charge of solicitation of murder. But with a lesser charge, comes a lower bail amount. She was put in the Sanley County jail and her bond was set at $500,000.

She stayed in jail throughout the summer and then in October 2008, she made her bond and was released. To the Stanley County DA's dismay, Betty goes off the grid. They did not know where she went from jail and we didn't find out for some time later that she was living with her daughter in Louisiana. Prosecutors and investigators continue to build their case. Like any good investigation, you should always continue it, never close the investigation by arrest, so we didn't. We continued to try to interview people, reach out to people,

and the DA's office began to assemble the case for a potential trial. In the months leading up to her trial, Betty grows increasingly erratic. Her lawyer is forced to post-pone and cancel pre-trial hearings and depositions. She never could make a court appearance. She's always too sick.

In May 2009, prosecutors learn why from Betty's doctor. We took her on Friday to have a pet scan done. And on Friday is when we found out she had cancer all over. On June 12, 2011, 79-year-old Betty Neumar becomes permanently out of reach of the law. She was sitting there, and she kept pointing up. So I went over and I asked her, I said, I would like to bother you, rise.

Well, I went ahead and have them damn them anyway. As she just kept going, like she was pointing up. Her health continued to deteriorate, and she passed away. They say people, when they're dying, they tell the truth. And right before she passed away, she called my husband and me to the bedside. And she said, I did not do it.

I can honestly say, I believe my mom. She said, but I can tell you right now, I'm going back right now. And I'm gonna be, was Harold and John. She said, that's the two loves of my life. Shortly after that, she closed her eyes. The news of Betty's death is hard to take for Harold's brother, Al Gentry.

He was quite upset, because in you then, she would not be brought to trial. We had just drove up at a restaurant in Richfield, and I think Scott might have been the one that called and told him he couldn't even eat, he was so upset. Because he knew that was it. Now five grieving families share the same burden. She was never charged in the death of Clarence Malone,

James Flynn, Dick Sills, or John Neumar. She was never charged in any of those. All of these families who had their fathers and brothers, they had probably put aside and never thought about what happened to them. Questions have now been raised in their minds that they will never be able to have answered. That to me is a tragedy, because there's always

going to be the question, what happened to one, to two, to three, to five? Nevertheless, investigators in North Carolina have pledged to keep digging. This is Harold's justice and answers for his family. Investigators in North Carolina have pledged to keep digging. This is Harold's Justice, and answers for his family. This is his crime scene. It was his life.

It was his death. And that is why the case is still open, and it's moving forward. No one's ever going to give up. We never give up on a case. It doesn't matter that it's been now 33 years. We're moving forward. The thing I'm most proud of in the case

is the work that Laura and my detectives did 20 some years after the fact to bring about a prosecutable case and to make an arrest in a case that was over 20 years old at the time. And even if we're lost, if we're going to trial, I would still be proud of that because I know that we would have done the best we could do with what we had. Harold Gentry's murder remains an open case.

There have been no investigations opened into the deaths of Betty's other husbands. For more information on snapped, go to oxygen.com. Keith Morrison and Dateline NBC are bringing you a haunting new podcast called Mommy Doomsday. The disappearance of two of Lori Valos' children in Rexburg, Idaho in September 2019 was one of the most bizarre cases the country had ever seen. It left behind a trail of death, devotion and doomsday beliefs that captivated the nation. Listen to Mommy Doomsday from Dateline NBC, wherever you get your podcasts.