What would True Crime & Equines be in 2025 without Doc presenting on her most famous case: How She Caught the Black Widow Granny.

Betty Neumar was a seemingly ordinary, silver-haired grandmother who gained national attention after investigators discovered that five of her husbands had died under suspicious circumstances between 1950 and 1986. What first appeared to be misfortune began to unravel as a pattern — and eventually led to a renewed investigation into a decades-old murder. Dr. Laura Pettler led the victim-centered investigative strategy that cracked the decades-old mystery. Her work:

• Reframed Harold Gentry as the primary lens of analysis (rather than Neumar as a reactive spouse)

• Applied modern forensic staging analysis

• Helped authorities reclassify Gentry’s murder as intentional, not random

Thanks to Dr. Pettler’s involvement, the case is a landmark example of behavioral forensics and cold case strategy.