ALBEMARLE, N.C.–Jeff Carstensen was spooked when he learned his grandmother planned to buy him a $100,000 life insurance policy – and name herself the beneficiary.

"She told me that people of our stature have insurance policies on each other," he said. "That way, if something happens to you, you take care of me, and if something happens to me, I take care of you. It was all too suspicious. So I got out of there any way I could, as soon as I could."

As he and many others who came into Betty Neumar's orbit have learned, bad things tend to happen to the people around her.

The 76-year-old Georgia woman sits in a North Carolina jail, accused of hiring a hitman to kill fourth husband Harold Gentry. Authorities are re-examining the deaths of her first child and four of the five men she married, including Gentry.

Records and interviews with relatives and police paint Neumar as a domineering matriarch consumed by money.

Al Gentry pressed North Carolina authorities for 22 years to reinvestigate his brother Harold's death. "You can't trust her. You can't believe a word she says."

She collected at least $20,000 in 1986 when Harold Gentry was shot to death in his home.

A year earlier, she had collected $10,000 in life insurance when her son died.

Ohio police are probing the death of Carstensen's stepfather Gary Flynn. Flynn was found shot dead in his apartment in November 1985. The death of Betty Neumar's son was ruled a suicide but his family have questions. A decision on reopening that case is pending.

She also had a life insurance policy on husband No. 5, John Neumar, who died in October. The official cause of death was listed as sepsis, but authorities are investigating whether he was poisoned.

Al Gentry saw Neumar for the first time in many years yesterday in Stanly County District Court. Later, he called her orange jail jumpsuit "the prettiest outfit I've ever seen her in."

Judge Lisa Thacker refused to lower Neumar's $500,000 bond and set Aug. 11 for a probable-cause hearing. Defence lawyer Charles Parnell argued his client was not a flight risk, calling the bond "completely excessive." He claimed Neumar has less than $1,000 in assets and no overseas bank accounts.

But Assistant District Attorney Tim Rodgers said she has used 28 aliases on passports, driver licences and credit cards and is being investigated in other jurisdictions.

To outsiders, she was Bee – a friendly woman who ran beauty shops, attended church and raised money for charity.

Carstensen saw another side: fist fights at family functions, use of obscenities and belittling of relatives, how she would act "one way in public – especially church – and another behind closed doors."

Interviews, documents and court records provide an outline of her history in North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Georgia, all states where she was married.

Born Betty Johnson in 1931 in Ironton, a hardscrabble Ohio town, she graduated from high school in 1949, marrying Clarence Malone in November 1950. She was 18, he was 19.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

In December 1951, she claimed in court papers that Malone abused her. It's unclear what happened to that complaint or when the marriage ended. Their son, Gary, was born March 13, 1952.

A single shot to the head killed Malone, outside his auto shop in a small town southwest of Cleveland in November 1970. His death was ruled a homicide.

Gary Flynn (née Malone) was adopted by Betty Neumar's second husband, James A. Flynn. It's unclear when they met and married. She told investigators he "died on a pier" somewhere in New York in the mid-1950s. They had a daughter, Peggy. His is the only death officials are not reinvestigating.

Florida records show her living in Jacksonville and enrolled in beauty college in 1960 as Betty Flynn.

Her third husband, Richard Sills, was found dead in his apartment in the Florida Keys in 1965. Neumar told police they were alone in a room arguing when he pulled out a gun and shot himself. Authorities, who ruled it a suicide, are now reinvestigating.

Three years later, Neumar married Gentry. Five years after he died, she married John Neumar.

While living with him in Augusta, Ga., in the mid-1990s, former friends and kin said, she persuaded more than 200 people to invest in a get-rich-quick scheme, telling them they would get up to $100,000 for every $100 they put toward legal expenses of a rich European family that died with no heirs.

Seven ringleaders in the scam pleaded guilty in 1997. Neumar was never charged.

John Neumar was worth $300,000 when they wed in 1991. Nearly 10 years later, they filed for bankruptcy, with more than $206,000 due on 43 credit cards.



