Melissa Joan Hart will star as the title character in Black Widow Killer: The Judy Buenoano Story, a true-crime Lifetime movie set for release on January 23, 2027.
The official synopsis for the film describes a story about Judy Buenoano, a successful Florida salon owner whose fiancé survives a car bombing. As police investigate the incident, Judy’s dark history comes to light.
Agam Darshi will direct from a script by Taylor Martin. Chris Bauer (True Blood, The Wire) and Matthew Settle (Ouija, Band of Brothers) will star along with Melissa Joan Hart.
Melissa has played dark characters in Lifetime movies before. Most recently, she starred in Killing the Competition (2025) as a mother who goes to deadly lengths to live vicariously through her daughter.
Judy Buenoano was a convicted killer who was sentenced to death in Florida. She used arsenic to kill two of her partners (one husband, one boyfriend), and was working on a third when she was caught. He’s the one who also survived his car exploding.
She was also convicted of murdering her son by drowning, who also had traces of arsenic in his system. Buenoano was executed by electrocution in Florida in 1998.
