Executed November 2, 1984 by Lethal Injection in North Carolina
18th murderer executed in U.S. in 1984
29th murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
1st female murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
2nd murderer executed in North Carolina in 1984
2nd murderer executed in North Carolina since 1976
1st female murderer executed in North Carolina since 1976
(Race/Sex/Age at Murder-Execution) |
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(Race/Sex/Age at Murder) |
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Velma Margie Barfield FEMALE W / F / 45 - 52 |
Stewart Taylor W / M / 56 |
Barfield later confessed to the 1974 murder of her own mother (in whose name she had taken out a loan) and of two elderly people, John Henry Lee (by whom she was being paid as a housekeeper/caregiver) and Dollie Edwards (a relative of Stuart Taylor). Velma always attended the funerals of her victims and appeared to grieve genuinely for them. The body of her late husband, Thomas Barfield, was later exhumed and also found to contain traces of arsenic. Velma denied that she had killed him. Her motives for these four murders were the same. She had misappropriated money from her victims and then according to her, tried to make them ill so she could nurse them whilst finding another job to enable her to repay the money. Needless to say, the jury was less than impressed by this defense.
Barfield gained notoriety as the "Death Row Granny," becoming the first woman to be executed in the U.S. since 1962, and the first since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
Citations:
State v. Barfield, 259 S.E.2d 510 (N.C. 1979) (Direct Appeal).
Barfield v. Woodard, 748 F.2d 844 (5th Cir. 1984) (Habeas).
Internet Sources:
North Carolina Department of Correction - Death Penalty
Capital Punishment USA - Women Executed
Velma Margie Barfield.
Velma Barfield made international headlines when she became the first woman to be executed in America since 1962 and first since the re-introduction of the death penalty in 1976. She was also the first woman to be executed by lethal injection.
She was put to death at 2.00 a.m. on the 2nd of November 1984 at the Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina, a somewhat plump, 52 year old, grandmother, who had murdered four people. Velma was addicted to drugs, not the hard drugs like heroin or cocaine, but rather prescription drugs such as tranquilizers, sleeping pills, anti-depressants and barbiturates. Her addiction stemmed from a nervous breakdown and she had a history of overdosing and subsequent hospital treatment, with four admissions between 1972 and 1975.
Background.
She was born on the 23rd October 1932 in North Carolina, the oldest girl and second of a large family of nine children. She claimed her father beat and raped her and her sisters although this was disputed by other relatives. She dropped out of school and by nineteen had two children, a son, Ron and a daughter, Kim by her first husband, Thomas. To begin with the marriage was happy and they seemed like a normal family unit. All began to deteriorate when Thomas suffered head injuries in a car crash in 1966 and became unable to work. Velma got a job in a store to make ends meet and support the family. Thomas rapidly become an alcoholic and Velma began to take anti-depressants and tranquilizers to get her through the daily stress of what had become a miserable life. Ultimately she had a breakdown and became addicted to the various drugs. Thomas died in 1969 in a house fire, which may not have been an accident and Velma re-married in 1970 to Jennings Barfield who was dead within 6 months - the cause - arsenic poisoning. Her limited employment opportunities could not support her drug habit so she took to forging cheques and then killing the people she had defrauded.
The crimes.
By 1977 she was in a relationship with Stuart Taylor who was a widower and tobacco farmer. As usual she forged checks on Taylor's account to pay for her addiction. Presumably Taylor began to get suspicious, because fearing that she had been found out, she mixed an arsenic based rat poison into his beer and tea. Taylor became very ill and Velma volunteered to nurse him. As his condition worsened she took him to hospital where he died a few days later. Unfortunately for her there was an autopsy which found that the cause of Taylor's death was arsenic poisoning and Velma was arrested and charged with his murder. At the trial her defense pleaded insanity but this was not accepted and she was convicted. The jury recommended the death sentence. Velma appeared cold and uncaring on the stand and actually gave the District Attorney a round of applause when he made his closing speech.
She subsequently confessed to the murders of her mother in 1974 (in whose name she had taken out a loan) and of two elderly people, John Henry Lee by whom she was being paid as a housekeeper/carer and Dollie Edwards through whom she met Stuart Taylor (he was related to Dollie). Velma always attended the funerals of her victims and appeared to grieve genuinely for them. Her late husband, Thomas's body was later exhumed and also found to contain traces of arsenic but Velma denied that she had killed him. Her motives for these four murders were the same. She had misappropriated money from her victims and then according to her, tried to make them ill so she could nurse them whilst finding another job to enable her to repay the money. Needless to say, the jury was less than impressed by this defense.
Death row.
On death row at Raleigh Velma, now off the drugs, she expressed remorse for the years that the pills had blurred her judgment and destroyed her moral compass. However she could not really explain why she had killed. She became a "born again" Christian whilst awaiting trial and during the next six years that she spent on death row did a lot to help and counsel other female inmates.
Appeals to save her dragged on through various courts and there were many representations on her behalf by religious leaders. Her final appeal was filed on October 30th 1984 in the North Carolina Supreme Court on the grounds that she was incompetent at her original trial by virtue of her drug addiction. This was rejected by the court. There had been many appeals on her behalf, the Supreme Court having rejected them on three occasions. The Governor of North Carolina, James B. Hunt, declined to grant clemency and was unimpressed by her religious conversion and good behavior on death row. (The same argument for commutation was trotted out in the case of Karla Faye Tucker in Texas in 1998) It is claimed by some, that Hunt could not reprieve her without looking "soft" on crime during the run up to the state elections in 1984. She began to accept her death and instructed her attorney, Jimmy Little, to drop all appeals the day before she was due to be executed saying that she wanted to "die with dignity". She clearly had little fear of what lay ahead and is quoted as saying "When I go into that chamber at 2.00 a.m. it's my gateway to heaven"
Execution.
Under North Carolina law she was allowed the choice of execution by lethal gas or lethal injection and, not surprisingly, she chose the latter. She could not face her last meal and asked a guard to get her Coca-Cola and Cheeze Doodles instead. She dressed in her own pink pajamas for the execution and was made to wear a diaper. A stethoscope and heart monitor were taped to her chest. The wheeled gurney (see below) was taken to her cell and she was secured to it with straps over her body and legs. Catheters were inserted into her arms and a saline drip started before she was wheeled into the execution chamber a few minutes before 2.00 a.m.
Three syringes were attached to each of the IV lines and these were operated by three volunteers. One of the IV lines was, in fact, a dummy so that none of the three volunteers could be sure if he had actually killed her or not. She was pronounced dead at 2.15 a.m., the execution having gone without any hitches. At 2.25 a.m. her body was whisked away by a waiting ambulance, past the crowds of pro and anti capital punishment demonstrators who had assembled outside the prison. She had requested that her organs be used for transplant purposes. In fact this was not possible as heart had not been beating for 10 minutes and could not be restarted, although attempts were made to, by the transplant team. Her corneas and some skin tissue were able to be used.
Conclusion.
So was Velma Barfield a monster and serial killer or just a poor demented soul who's brain was befuddled by drugs and who always needed more money to pay for them? My own answer is somewhere in between. As many before her she, no doubt, found that murder came quite easily once she had committed the first one and it offered a simple and permanent solution to the problem of being found out by those she was defrauding.
State v. Barfield, 259 S.E.2d 510 (N.C. 1979)
Prior to January 1978, defendant and Stewart Taylor had been going together. On occasion, defendant stayed with Taylor at his home in St. Pauls, North Carolina. At the time of his *310 death, Taylor was fifty-six years old. He had been in fairly good health until the evening of 31 January 1978, four days before his death. On that evening, defendant and Taylor went to Fayetteville to attend a gospel sing. While at the performance, Taylor became ill. The couple left and returned to St. Pauls. At approximately 2:30 the following morning, Taylor began vomiting and having diarrhea. He continued to be ill throughout the day.
On the next day defendant took Taylor to Southeastern General Hospital in Lumberton **519 where he was treated. At the time he was examined by an emergency room physician, Taylor was complaining of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, as well as general pain in his muscles, chest and abdomen. His blood pressure was low. His pulse was weak and rapid. He was dehydrated and his skin was ashen in color. After receiving intravenous fluids and vitamins, as well as other treatment, Taylor was released from the hospital and defendant took him back to his home in St. Pauls where she fed him. The next day, 3 February 1978, an ambulance was summoned to Taylor's home. The attendants found him to be in great pain. His blood pressure was very low, his breathing was rapid, and his skin was gray. During the trip to the hospital, Taylor was restless and moaning. While he was in the emergency room, he was given intravenous fluids. A tracheotomy was performed but he died in the emergency room approximately one hour after he was brought in. One of the attending physicians, Dr. Richard Jordan, was "not satisfied" as to the precise cause of death. After talking with two of the attending physicians, members of Taylor's family requested that an autopsy be performed.
The autopsy was performed by Dr. Bob Andrews, a pathologist. During the course of the autopsy, toxicological screenings were performed on samples of Taylor's liver and blood. Though the normal human body contains no arsenic in the blood or in liver tissue, Taylor's blood was found to have an arsenic level of .13 milligrams percent. His liver had an arsenic level of one milligram percent. These findings led Dr. Andrews to conclude that Taylor died from acute arsenic poisoning. On 10 March 1978, Robeson County Deputy Sheriffs Wilbur Lovette and Al Parnell talked with defendant at the Sheriff's Department in Lumberton. After having been given her Miranda *311 warnings, defendant executed a written waiver indicating that she understood what her rights were and that she was willing to make a statement as well as answer questions without the presence of an attorney. The conversation between defendant and the deputies related to a number of checks that had been forged on the account of Stewart Taylor. During the interview, the officers produced a check dated 31 January 1978 in the amount of $300.00. Defendant stated that she had seen the check before; that she had cashed the check; and that while she had "filled out" the check it was signed by Taylor himself. While she talked with the officers, defendant produced two checks from her pocketbook which were dated 4 November 1977 and 23 November 1977. Both checks were drawn on Taylor's checking account and were payable to her. They were in the amounts of $100.00 and $95.00, respectively.
The State introduced evidence obtained through handwriting analysis which tended to show that the three checks were not written by Stewart Taylor; and that the checks had been cashed by defendant at a branch of First Union National Bank in Lumberton. During the interview with the deputies, defendant denied that she had forged any checks on Taylor's account. Defendant was asked by the officers if she knew the cause of Taylor's death. Upon being told that the autopsy had indicated that arsenic poisoning was the cause of Taylor's death, defendant began crying, stating that "You all think I put poison in his food." She then proceeded to deny that she was in any way involved with Taylor's death. After making that denial, defendant was taken home. The investigation continued through the weekend.
On Monday, 13 March 1978, defendant returned to the sheriff's department accompanied by her son, Ronald Burke. After she was again advised of her constitutional rights, she executed another written waiver. She then made a lengthy statement in the presence of Deputies Lovette and Parnell.
In her statement, she admitted that before 1 January 1978 she had forged some checks on Taylor's account which he found out about when his bank statements came in the mail; that upon finding out about the forgeries, Taylor talked with her and **520 threatened to "turn her in" to the authorities; that she forged another check on Taylor's account on 31 January 1978; that the *312 forgery bothered her because Taylor would find out about it; that on that day, she and Taylor went to Lumberton because she had an appointment with her doctor; that after they left the doctor's office, they stopped at a drug store ostensibly for her to purchase some hair spray; that instead she purchased a bottle of Terro Ant Poison; that the next day, 1 February 1978, she put some of the poison in Taylor's tea at lunchtime; and that later that same day, she put more of the substance in Taylor's beer.
Defendant told the officers that she felt sure that what she had done was wrong but that she had not told anyone at the hospital about it on the two occasions that Taylor had been taken there for treatment. She stated that she gave Taylor the poison because she was afraid that he would "turn her in" for forgery. She further stated that she used the money she got out of the 31 January check to pay bills for doctors and medicine. She concluded by confessing that she had given poison to other persons besides Taylor and that they too had died. Deputy Lovette then advised defendant that there was a possibility that a number of bodies would be exhumed. He asked her if arsenic would be found in the bodies. When she answered affirmatively, Deputy Lovette asked her in which bodies arsenic would be found.
Defendant admitted that while she lived and worked in the home of John Henry Lee as a housekeeper and nurse's aide in early 1977 she found a checkbook for an account in the joint names of Lee and his wife, Record; that she wrote a check on the account in the amount of $50.00; that Mr. and Mrs. Lee found out about the forgery and asked her about it; that she then purchased a bottle of poison, pausing to read the label which said "May be fatal if swallowed" and that she gave Mr. Lee poison three times once in his tea and twice in his coffee.
The state introduced other evidence which tended to show: On or about 28 April 1977 Mr. Lee, 80 years old, became ill. Until then he had been in good health and attended to numerous chores around his home. On 29 April 1977, he was taken to the hospital complaining of vomiting and diarrhea. Though he was released from the hospital on 2 May 1977, he continued to be ill throughout the month of May, complaining of vomiting, diarrhea, and general pain through his body. On 3 June 1977, he was taken to the *313 hospital again where the attending physician, Dr. Alexander, observed that he was critically ill. Deep blue in color, his skin was cold and wet with perspiration. He was confused and unresponsive and his blood pressure was subnormal. On 4 June 1977 he died.
Though no autopsy was performed at the time of Mr. Lee's death, his body was exhumed pursuant to a court order on 18 March 1978 and taken to the office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill where an autopsy was performed. Toxicological screenings revealed that the liver contained an arsenic level of 2.8 milligrams percent and the muscle tissue contained an arsenic level of 0.3 milligrams percent. Dr. Page Hudson, Chief Medical Examiner of the State of North Carolina, testified that in his opinion Mr. Lee's death was caused by arsenic poisoning.
Defendant admitted to the officers that she had poisoned Mrs. Dolly Taylor Edwards; that in early 1976 she moved into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery Edwards in Lumberton as a live-in helper; that Mr. Edwards died on 29 January 1977; that in late February 1977 she drove to St. Pauls where she purchased a bottle of poison; that she noticed on the bottle the words "Could be fatal if swallowed"; that returning home she put some of the poison in Mrs. Edwards coffee and cereal; and that shortly afterwards Mrs. Edwards became ill, suffering from nausea and general weakness in her body. The state introduced evidence that Mrs. Edwards was taken to the hospital on 27 February 1977, was treated and released. Her condition did not improve and she was again taken to the hospital on 1 March 1977 **521 where she died later that evening. The attending physician, Dr. Henry Neill Lee, Jr., testified that Mrs. Edwards was dehydrated and suffered from nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting.
In her statement to the deputies, defendant said that she knew that the poison was responsible for the death of Mrs. Edwards; that after Mrs. Edwards died, she threw the bottle of poison into a field behind the Edwards residence; and that she did not know why she gave the poison to Mrs. Edwards. Officer Lovette testified that during the course of his investigation he went to the field behind the Edwards home and *314 found an empty bottle of Singletary's Rat Poison which still bore the original label. He initialed the bottom of the bottle and kept it in his sole possession until the time of trial.
Though no autopsy was performed on the body of Mrs. Edwards at the time of her death, pursuant to a court order, her body was exhumed on 18 March 1978 and sent to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill where an autopsy was performed. During the autopsy, toxicological screenings were conducted on samples of Mrs. Edwards' liver tissue and muscle tissue. In the liver tissue, there was found an arsenic level of 0.4 milligrams percent. In the muscle tissue, there was found an arsenic level of .08 milligrams percent. Dr. Page testified that in his opinion Mrs. Edwards' death was caused by arsenic poisoning.
Defendant further admitted in her statement to the deputies that she had poisoned her mother, Lillie McMillan Bullard; that during 1974 she lived with her mother in Parkton, N. C.; and that while she lived with her mother she forged her mother's name to a note in favor of the Commercial Credit Company of Lumberton. (Other testimony indicated that the note was in the amount of $1,048.00.) She further told the deputies that she was afraid that her mother would find out about the note; that she bought a bottle of poison and the bottle bore the warning "Can be fatal if swallowed"; that one day at dinnertime she put some of the poison in some soup and a soft drink and gave both to her mother; that later in the evening on the same day she gave her mother a soft drink which contained a dose of the poison; that Mrs. Bullard began to vomit and have diarrhea; and that she was taken to Cape Fear Valley Hospital in Fayetteville on 30 December 1974 where she died shortly after her arrival. The attending physician, Dr. Weldon Jordan, testified that Mrs. Bullard was restless and gasping for breath when she was brought into the hospital; that she was in shock; and that he was unable to discern any blood pressure.
Upon the death of Mrs. Bullard, an autopsy was performed with the permission of her family, including defendant. No toxicological screenings were conducted at that time. Pursuant to a court order the body of Mrs. Bullard was exhumed on 18 March 1978 and taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in *315 Chapel Hill. Dr. William Frank Hamilton testified that he performed toxicological screenings upon samples of hair, muscle tissue and skin which had been taken from the body; that the hair sample revealed an arsenic concentration of .6 milligrams percent; that the muscle tissue had an arsenic level of .3 milligrams percent; that the skin sample had an arsenic level of .1 milligrams percent; and that in his opinion, Mrs. Bullard's death was caused by arsenic poisoning.
Although defendant did not admit any involvement in the death of her husband, Jennings L. Barfield, his body was exhumed pursuant to a court order on 31 May 1978. It was taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill where an autopsy was performed. Toxicological screenings indicated that varying levels of arsenic were present in his body tissue. Dr. Neil A. Worden testified that he treated Mr. Barfield when he was brought to the emergency room of the Cape Fear Valley Hospital in Fayetteville on 22 March 1971. At that time Mr. Barfield complained of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and aching throughout his body. Mr. Barfield had **522 been brought to the emergency room for the first time at about 11:00 p. m. on 21 March 1971. At that time he was treated and released. However, he returned to the hospital at 5:00 the next morning at which time he was given intravenous fluids. By the time that Dr. Worden first saw him at about 8:00 a. m., Mr. Barfield was in shock; his blood pressure was low; his pulse was rapid; and his complexion was ashen. Dehydrated and gasping for air, Mr. Barfield appeared to Dr. Worden to be in great pain. Dr. Hamilton testified that the cause of Mr. Barfield's death was arsenic poisoning. At the close of the state's evidence, defendant made a motion to dismiss. Upon the court's denial of the motion, she presented evidence which tended to show:
During the month of January 1978 defendant was under the care of five doctors none of whom knew she was under the care of the others. She had been seeing the doctors for some time and had obtained prescriptions for a number of drugs from them. Among the drugs she was taking at that time were: Elavil, Sinequan, Tranxene, Tylenol III, and Valium. She had a history of drug abuse and had been admitted to the hospital at least four times for overdoses.
"Death Sentence : The True Story of Velma Barfield's Life, Crimes and Execution," by Jerry Bledsoe & Velma Barfield.
Book Reviews
Amazon.com - In 1984, Velma Barfield became the first woman since 1962 to be executed in the United States. Her crimes were unusual: Barfield was convicted of the 1978 arsenic poisoning of her fiancé, Stuart Taylor, and she admitted killing three other people with poison, including her own mother. But her path to execution was circuitous, involving appeal after appeal to various high courts, a grassroots movement to prevent her death, a jailhouse spiritual epiphany, and subsequent "recollections" of childhood abuse and torment that she claimed eventually led to her abuse of prescription tranquilizers, which in turn clouded her judgment and enabled her to perform murderous crimes. Death Sentence, however, is as much about the people she left behind as it is about her fate.
Jerry Bledsoe chooses Barfield's son, Ronnie Burke, as his protagonist. Burke is a greatly sympathetic character whose sense of horror and shame leaps from the pages. Burke watches his own life fall apart as his mother undergoes a transformation in prison, while he uses every last ounce of his strength to try to save her life. He feels duty bound to help her, but nearing the end of the appeals process, he begs her to just quit and accept her ultimate penalty. Yet at her funeral, divorced and in the beginning stages of alcoholism, he cries and begs her forgiveness, apologizing for not doing more to save her. Openly critical of the death penalty, Bledsoe focuses a surgically precise camera on the process of state-sponsored execution and its effects, and the result is a grim but gripping and suspenseful tale. --Tjames Madison
From Booklist , October 1, 1998 - Poisoning fianceStuart Taylor only began Velma Barfield's last round of troubles. "I only meant to make him sick," she told son Ronnie Burke. Imagine his chagrin when he turned his mom in and then found she was in the crosshairs of county attorney (and minion of justice extraordinaire) Joe Freeman Britt's prosecutorial sights. Thus a woman with lots of problems was pitted against a crusading, highly successful death penalty proponent. Barfield had a history of polite drug dependency and mild-to-moderate financial indiscretion when her propensity for poisoning came to light. Her conviction for murdering Taylor (she also murdered her mother in what amounts to a subplot here) comes about halfway through the book, the rest of which concerns her and her family's travails in dealing with her crimes and the imprisonment, appeal processes, and execution plans that followed her conviction. This may not be instructive reading, but it is certainly taut and engrossing on the nature of justice and the death penalty as well as on guilt and responsibility. [Mike Tribby Copyright© 1998, American Library Association. All rights reserved ]
Book Description - In February 1978, Stuart Taylor was rushed to the hospital. He died the following day, while his distraught fiance, Velma Barfield, held vigil at his bedside. When an autopsy revealed the true cause of his death--arsenic poisoning--Velma became the prime suspect. Confronted by her trusting son, she shocked him and her family by saying, "I only meant to make him sick." But more horrifying revelations were to come. Velma had killed before--and among her victims was her own mother! Thus began her family' s long nightmare. Velma Barfield' s name would become known around the world in the debate about women and capital punishment. But nobody would know the agonies her family suffered, especially her son, who harbored secrets that only he knew--until now. Deeply moving, unfolds with the page-turning suspense of a psychological thriller, while raising questions that still tear at America's conscience.
Synopsis - "New York Times" bestselling author Jerry Bledsoe's newest true-crime masterpiece tells the inside story of an infamous case that raises questions about the death penalty. 8-pages of photos.
"No Reprieve: Jerry Bledsoe's 'Death Sentence' traces the trials and tribulations of Velma Barfield," by Laura Argiri.
Why read Jerry Bledsoe's Death Sentence (Dutton, $24.95), which is substantial and no cordial of cheer and reassurance? Because it's genuinely instructive; if you're like most of us, it'll tell you things you don't already know. And because it's timely: In our current social climate, amidst the freshest expressions of our violent, pragmatic American group-soul, it's very timely.
In the glare of recent events - barbaric praise addressed to the murderer of a doctor who did abortions, the heckling of mourners at Matthew Shepard's funeral - the execution of Velma Barfield is easy to remember. November 2, 1984, is memorable firstly because of the media-flogged anticipation that built like a migraine prodrome throughout this state all that autumn. Secondly, because of the demonstrators on one side, with signs scrawled, "Bye-bye, Velma!" and carrying on in their out-of-hand Halloween party glee, and because of the demonstrators on the other side, mourning this multiple murderer like the last martyr.
The execution night demonstrators were oddly assorted, perhaps not as formulaically as one might think. There were Christian groups in both ranks. Some people who might ordinarily find the death penalty unobjectionable in itself were keenly sympathetic with Velma Barfield for any number of reasons: because she was a woman, because she was an elderly woman, because of the misery she had suffered. Sharp polarization was what she consistently inspired after her conviction: tearful empathy, angry revulsion. The outcome of her clemency appeals became an issue in the Hunt-Helms campaign, with the Helms contingent stongly in favor of her death, much of the Hunt following for leniency and Hunt himself declining clemency in opposition to the Helms side's expectations.
Some events just lend themselves to a polarization of passion in which facts, even unequivocal ones, are less important than their impact, and Right and Left may be equally hysterical and repulsive in their reactions. And after the fact, after the trials and appeals and execution, many were haunted by a queasy, scab-picking How could she? And Why, why did she, really?
In Death Sentence, Jerry Bledsoe illumines many issues that had emerged only partially at the time of the execution. One is the ferocity of Barfield's multi-drug addiction. "In the nine years between Thomas' death and her arrest," writes Bledsoe, "she would get prescriptions from more than two dozen doctors, not only for Valium but for nearly two dozen other drugs, most of them also addictive, including barbiturates, narcotics, sleeping pills, stimulants and antidepressants, all of them prescribed by doctors trying to be helpful, and all of them dangerous and unpredictable when combined with Valium."
It was her misfortune that she could stay vertical after a dose that would render most of us comatose. It was also an expensive habit, with only a fragile economy to support it. Velma, born poor, had achieved a comfortable life in her marriage to Thomas Burke. The life and the marriage destabilized abruptly when Thomas discovered alcohol. Velma became upset when Thomas started attending Jaycee meetings and having a beer or two with the guys afterward. Her anxiety was not misplaced, for Thomas took very little time to become a full-time drunk. He died after a fire which she later admitted setting.
With her addictions gaining ground, her employment as a live-in caregiver was probably the worst she could have had. Unwell, needy, she was saddled with the needs of aged and ill people. This was hard and depressing work, worse for a depressive. Unstable, she now endured an extra dimension of instability, a nervous existence at the mercy of employers whose satisfaction was the only thing between her and the street. When Velma's overdoses and lapses did not elicit dissatisfaction, her habit of getting hold of their checkbooks and writing herself checks without their consent did. Not wanting to be fired, not feeling free to quit these jobs, usually having nowhere of her own to go, Velma resorted to arsenic. Arsenic was the instrument of the end for her second husband, Jennings Barfield, when he was about to divorce her, and for Stuart Taylor, the last person she dated. She dosed her mother to keep her from discovering a check she'd written on her. As methods go, hers was desperate, unclever and clearly marked: Velma needing drugs, Velma needing money for them, Velma doing what was expedient to get it. Then discovery and endangerment and their fallout in the form of death after nasty death by "gastroenteritis."
What kind of tragedy was hers? A tragedy of ignorance, Bledsoe clarifies: the pharmaceutical industry's naivete about addiction and idiosyncratic reactions. A tragedy of class, of a poor woman's indenture to slightly-better-off members of the rural bourgeoisie. A tragedy of thwarting: a nervous, fragile soul blundering through a world of bad luck; a woman who just wanted a nice house and nice husband, not an outrageous demand to make on life, and lost the things she wanted. A tragedy of capacity: We do not come into the world with equal resilience, and some of us are quicker than others to proceed to desperate remedies.
And perhaps a tragedy of individual temperament. Bledsoe's very keen and full account of Barfield's trials demonstrates that any murder can be seen as a crime of passion by someone who, however mistakenly or momentarily, believed that there was no alternative. Velma Barfield was someone who came to that point rather early and rather often, and had a body count to show for it. Arsenic poisoning, too, is a murder method of such cruelty and built-in premeditation that it is hard to find the execution of an arsenic poisoner unconscionable. Yet Bledsoe's description of the pink pajamas this woman wore to her death is affecting. I remember how the mental image of those pajamas, described in the news after the execution in a violation of the last privacies, troubled me in dreams long after the demonstrators retired and the nation's eye turned elsewhere: an effective emblem of the woman's common humanity, her reasonable desire for a comfortable life.
Bledsoe's treatment of Velma Barfield's history and family are focused and intensive. Since the Barfield poisonings hit the news and well through the trials, I had wondered what went on in the bosom of that family. Bledsoe makes that clear: much worthy striving, much that was not ideal. Read this book, and you will meet the whole clan and respect some of them. Though depicted with great particularity, they are all EverySoutherner, whom many of us also are or know very well: hard-bitten, hard-working, a full range of courtesies and brutalities ready for use as needed. Bledsoe also makes it clear that Barfield's fall did not go unregarded. Her son, Ronnie Burke, had been conscious of her problems from early adolescence. He and his sister Pam watched their mother with anguished concern, with continuous attempts to intervene. The fact that the interventions did not succeed does not diminish their efforts. The teenaged Pam advising Jennings Barfield not to marry Velma, the teenaged Ronnie visiting Velma's doctors to urge them to stop prescribing - both are important parts of this picture. This book may do what the true crime genre rarely attempts if it provides them with deserved validation and some measure of healing.
What in this book is least absorbing? Probably the energy spent on Velma's spiritual awakening in prison - almost predictable on the part of convicted murderers. One who vocally maintained his or her atheism... now, would be interesting. What would have been a worthwhile addition? A little diversion into arsenic poisoning as a topic unto itself - its striking popularity as a murder method in North Carolina, its incidence as a female crime and its frequency as a crime against kin or lovers. And much could have been made of the remarkable similarities between Barfield and her fellow Tarheel and arsenic poisoner Blanche Taylor Moore. Moore, a sharper and tougher customer in many respects, had no drug involvement but did to death a father, a mother-in-law, a lover and two husbands: all people connected with intimacy and dependency and, apparently, resentment of no minor caliber. Someday Bledsoe might find that particular thorny outback of Love & Death worth exploring as well.
North Carolina Department of Correction News (November 1998)
Death Sentence, the new book from best-selling true crime novelist and former Greensboro News and Record reporter Jerry Bledsoe, recounts the life of Velma Barfield who was executed in North Carolina in 1984.
Death Sentence begins by introducing District Attorney Joe Freeman Britt, already famous for his death penalty prosecutions, and Ronnie Burke, Barfield’s son who receives two phone calls. In the first, Burke learns his mother has been arrested in the death of her fiancé, Stuart Taylor. Hours later he receives the news that she has confessed to the murders of Taylor, her own mother and two elderly people she nursed.
After this introduction, Bledsoe retraces Barfield's life, turning to her childhood in Robeson County where she suffered at the hands of an abusive father and resented her mother who did not stop the beatings. She escaped the brutality by marrying Thomas Burke. Their marriage produced two children and much happiness until Barfield had a hysterectomy and developed back pain – events that resulted in behavior changes and drug addiction.
The marriage soured as her husband began to drink and Barfield began to complain. Complaining turned into bitter arguments. Then in April 1965, Barfield and the children left the house where Thomas had passed out drunk and later returned to find Thomas dead and their home burned. From this initial suspicious death, Bledsoe traces the series of deaths that followed Barfield, the pain suffered by the families of the victims and the suffering of her own children.
The story then turns from Barfield to District Attorney Britt. The trial unfolds with Britt piecing together the case against Barfield for the murder of Taylor and presenting evidence that she killed her mother, her second husband Jennings Barfield, John Henry Lee and Dollie Edwards. The trial concludes with a dramatic cross-examination by Britt of Barfield that helps seal her fate.
While the first half of the book paints a picture of Barfield the killer, the second half tells a story of Barfield the victim. Barfield enters the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women in chapter 17 and spends the next 16 months becoming drug free and undergoing an alleged religious conversion. As the book traces the defense attorneys’ efforts to halt the execution, it describes the suffering of Ronnie Burke. It also recounts the suffering of the victims’ families as they read news accounts arguing against Barfield’s execution.
In the closing chapters, Bledsoe helps people see the complexity of concerns correction staff confront in carrying out an execution. The book mentions a number of correction employees including Nathan Rice (now retired), Jenny Lancaster, Skip Pike, Carol Oliver and Patty McQuillan.
The book presents two very different views of Barfield, with the first half of the book portraying the prosecution of the case and the second half describing the appeals by her attorneys. It also documents the complexities of the execution process and the impact it can have on those who are a part of it.
"Celebrating Our Judgment," by Fylvia Fowler Kline.
In 1978 Velma Barfield was arrested for murdering four people, including her mother and fiance. She was on death row, confined in a cell by herself. One night a prison guard tuned into a 24-hour Christian radio station. Down the gray hall, desperate and alone in her cell, Velma listened to the gospel message and accepted Jesus as her Saviour. The outside world began to hear about Velma Barfield and how she had changed.
During the six years she was on death row she ministered to many of her cellmates. Many were touched by the sadness of her story and the sincerity of her love for Christ as well as the beauty of her Christian witness in that prison. Just before her execution, Velma wrote “I know the Lord will give me dying grace, just as He gave me saving grace, and has given me living grace.”
Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.” On earth Velma Barfield paid the price for her crimes. The hideous nature of sin is that while we can be forgiven them and freed from them, we, like Velma Barfield, must still face the consequences of our sins. At least until Christ returns, sin is here to stay. Sin cannot be eradicated. And for being born into this world, each of us has a price to pay. This does not mean that we receive a death sentence the moment we are born. Although we cannot avoid the consequences of our sins, in Jesus we can overcome them. At the judgment hall, Jesus’ blood washes away our sins and clothes us in His righteousness. [Fylvia Fowler Kline is assistant director of the Stewardship Department for the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists]
Female Serial Killers - True Crimes
Margie Velma Barfield (1969-1978) a 53-year old grandmother, killed 7 husbands, fiances, and her own mother in Lumberton, North Carolina. She burned some victims to death while they slept (made to look like smoking in bed), arranged prescription drug overdoses for others, and resorted to arsenic made to look like gastroenteritis for others. She was executed by lethal injection in 1984, the first woman to be executed in the U.S. since 1976.
Death Penalty News (Rick Halperin)
For clues about how the coming weeks might play in Texas, rewind to North Carolina, 1984. It was there that "Death Row Granny" Margie Velma Barfield, a born-again Christian who was posthumously praised by Billy Graham for her impact on other prisoners, became the 1st woman to be put to death in the modern era of the capital punishment. The portly, bespectacled 52-year-old private nurse and former Sunday school teacher was convicted of lacing her boyfriend's food with rat poison. She later admitted to poisoning 3 others, including her mother.
Her case also became a last-minute political issue in a tough U.S. Senate election in which liberal Democrat Gov. Jim Hunt challenged Republican incumbent Sen. Jesse Helms. Political analysts said Hunt was doomed to be hurt politically regardless of what he did. Had he commuted Barfield's sentence, he risked alienating his conservative pro-death penalty constituency. Some analysts said at the time that his refusal to show compassion toward the woman may have persuaded liberal, anti-death penalty voters to stay away from the polls. Joe Freeman Britt, the former prosecutor who sent Barfield to death row, remembers the pressure that mounted in North Carolina. "There were all these Velma Barfield support groups that grew up all around the nation, all over North Carolina, European countries -- England, France, Finland," Britt recalled. "Everybody involved in the case got tons of letters every day about it from all over the world. That then generated a certain political pressure in the case." But unlike Tucker's jailhouse conversion, Britt said, Barfield had always professed to being a God-fearing, church-going woman. He said Barfield bolstered her image as a devout Christian by asking her employers -- the families who hired her to care for ailing, elderly relatives whom she later poisoned -- for Wednesday nights and Sundays off so she could go to church.
Once imprisoned she, too, began leading Bible studies and counseling troubled female felons. She also uttered a deathbed apology. The image the media portrayed most often was that of a grandmother kneeling in prayer in prison, Britt added, and some of the victims' relatives had a difficult time believing she was capable of the crimes. Britt, however, said he was unfazed by arguments that Barfield should not be executed because of her Christianity -- a claim of which he was skeptical. "I probably brought more people to the Lord than Billy Graham," he said of his work as a prosecutor. "I mean when they go to prison, they all find the Lord...I hope it's true. I hope they do that. And if (Tucker has) had this experience, that's wonderful. It prepares her better for the judgment under the law." Although death penalty opponents had predicted a public outrage if North Carolina proceeded with the execution of Barfield, Britt said that never materialized. "I think the biggest flap came from other parts of the country and particularly overseas...," he said.