Elderly Jailed Grandma Suspected Of Hiring Hit Man In 1986 Murder Of Fourth Husband

Charlotte, NC (AHN) - A 76-year-old Georgia grandmother jailed in North Carolina is headed to court there on Monday to answer charges of soliciting a hit man to kill her fourth husband on the 22nd anniversary of the day he was found shot to death at their home.

Betty Neumar's trial Monday is a statutory hearing on probable cause to continue prosecuting her on charges alleging she solicited murder.

Neumar was arrested May 21 at her Cambridge Court home in Augusta, Ga. She was extradited back to North Carolina where her husband Thomas Harold Gentry was murdered on July 14, 1986, at the couple's Lake Shore Drive home in Norwood.

Her arrest came after North Carolina authorities investigating the unsolved murder uncovered evidence implicating Neumar.

Neumar collected at least $20,000 on a life insurance policy when Gentry died, a year earlier she collected $10,000 when her first child, Gary Flynn, died in 1985 of what was said to be suicide. She also has a life insurance policy on fifth husband John Neumar, who died in October of sepsis, but authorities in Georgia are now investigating to see if he was poisoned.

Authorities in Ohio have also been asked to re-investigate Flynn's death, and the death of Neumar's first husband, Clarence Malone, while authorities in Florida are investigating the death of her third husband, Richard Sills.