'Black Widow's' bail kept at $500K

ALBERMARLE, N.C., July 14 (UPI) -- A North Carolina judge Monday kept bail at $500,000 for an elderly woman dubbed the "Black Widow" who is charged in the death of one of her five late husbands.

While denying a defense request for lower bail, District Judge Lisa Thacker also gave prosecutors until Aug. 11 to dig up more evidence to build their case against Betty Neumar, 76, of Augusta, Ga., the Concord (N.C.) Independent Tribune reported. Neumar remains in the Stanly County Jail, the newspaper said.

Neumar is facing a charge of solicitation to commit murder in the 1986 shooting death of Thomas Harold Gentry, her fourth husband, at their home in Norwood, Ga. She was arrested in May at her current residence in Georgia and extradited to North Carolina.

Investigators in Ohio, Florida and Georgia are reviewing the deaths of Neumar's first, third and fifth husbands -- Clarence Malone, Richard Sills and John Neumar -- though the death of husband No. 2, John Flynn, has not been questioned, the newspaper said.

Meanwhile, authorities in Perry, Ohio, have been asked to review the circumstances surrounding the death of Neumar's son, Gary Flynn, whose 1985 death had been ruled a suicide.