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Thread: Velma Bullard Barfield - North Carolina Execution - November 2, 1984

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Velma Bullard Barfield - North Carolina Execution - November 2, 1984




    Summary of Offense: After two marraiges ended with the death of her husbands, by 1977 Barfield was in a relationship with Stuart Taylor, who was a widower and tobacco farmer. As she had been doing for years, she forged checks on Taylor's account to pay for her addiction to prescription drugs. 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.

    Victim: Stuart Taylor

    Time of Death: 2.15 a.m.

    Manner of execution: Lethal Injection

    Last Meal: Coca-Cola and Cheez Doodles

    Final Statement: Just before Mrs. Barfield was administered the lethal injection, she issued a brief statement, saying in part, ''I know that everybody has gone through a lot of pain, all the families connected, and I am sorry, and I want to thank everybody who have been supporting me all these six years.''

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    November 3, 1984

    FIRST WOMAN IS EXECUTED IN U.S. SINCE 1962

    RALEIGH, N.C., Nov. 2 — A moment after she uttered a a final apology for ''all the hurt I have caused,'' Margie Velma Barfield was executed here this morning for murder, the first woman to be put to death in the United States in 22 years.

    Prison officials said Mrs. Barfield, 52 years old, was pronounced dead at 2:15 A.M. today, 15 minutes after she had received a lethal injection of procuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant intended to stop her heart and her breathing.

    Witnesses to the execution said Mrs. Barfield, who was convicted in 1978 of killing Stuart Taylor, her fiance, by putting poison in his beer, died peacefully with no apparent suffering or pain. She had also confessed the fatal poisoning of her mother and two elderly people for whom she had been hired to care, although she was not tried for those slayings.

    Later in the day, while speaking to reporters, Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. of North Carolina strongly defended his decision in September to deny clemency for Mrs. Barfield, and described it as the kind of ''tough decision'' he has often had to make as Governor. Mr. Hunt, a Democrat, is in the final days of a close and bitterly fought race for the Senate here with Jesse Helms, the Republican incumbent. Canceled Campaign Schedule

    Aides to Mr. Hunt, who canceled his campaign schedule today because of the execution, concede they are concerned over the possible effect the execution, so close to Election Day, might have among voters.

    In his most extensive public remarks to date on the execution, Mr. Hunt denied that politics had anything to do with his decision to allow the execution. He also reaffirmed his strong support for the death penalty.

    Public opinion surveys show capital punishment is supported by a majority of voters in North Carolina.

    Some demonstraters who protested the execution outside the prison Thursday night accused Governor Hunt of refusing to show mercy and compassion, and Richard Burr, one of Mrs. Barfield's lawyers, said, ''Politics and death have been mixed up in this case.''

    The timing of the execution has bedeviled the Hunt campaign ever since a State Superior Court judge last August set the date just four days before the Nov. 6 general election. The judge, who offered no explanation for the timing, could have scheduled it as late as Nov. 22. Statement Before Execution

    Just before Mrs. Barfield was administered the lethal injection, she issued a brief statement, saying in part, ''I know that everybody has gone through a lot of pain, all the families connected, and I am sorry, and I want to thank everybody who have been supporting me all these six years.''

    Earlier, she received final visits from members of her family and close friends, and told one of them that ''when I go into that gas chamber at 2 A.M., it's my gateway to heaven.''

    She refused offers of prison officials for a specially prepared last meal, choosing instead Coca-Cola and Cheez Doodles.

    Mrs. Barfield is to be buried Saturday after funeral services in Fayetteville.

    Mrs. Barfield's case attracted widespread national attention among opponents of capital punishment, many of whom have argued that she had proven she could live a life of value behind prison walls. Had Aided Other Prisoners

    Described as a deeply religious person, Mrs. Barfield had been credited by some prison officials with furnishing support and counseling to many younger women inmates.

    About 300 opponents of capital punishment stood a silent vigil Thursday night in the shadows just beyond the prison's flood-lighted yard, grouped around a sign that spelled out the word ''hope'' in small lights. They carried candles that were extinguished as the moment of her execution passed.

    Inside the prison, where another 39 prisoners are awaiting execution, the sound of inmates banging rhythmically on the plexiglass windows of their cells echoed hollowly in the damp morning air.

    The sounds of their protest mixed occasionally with those of a group of about 80 people who demonstrated in favor of capital punishment. As the hour of Mrs. Barfield's execution neared, they cheered and applauded. Third Execution This Week

    Mrs. Barfield was the third person executed in the United States this week, and the first woman to be put to death since Elizabeth Ann Duncan, 58, died in the gas chamber in California in 1962 for conspiring to murder her daughter-in-law.

    Immediately after her execution, Mrs. Barfield's body was rushed to a medical school in nearby Winston- Salem, where doctors removed organs she earlier had agree to donate for transplants.

    Before the execution, Mrs. Barfield, strapped to a gurney and clad in pink pajamas and blue house slippers, was administered a sleep-inducing drug.

    ''I didn't notice any type of suffering,'' said Romona Jones, a reporter for The Raleigh Times and one of 16 witnesses to the execution. ''She just seemed to relax.''

    Mrs. Barfield set the stage for her execution earlier Thursday, when she told her attorneys to abandon efforts to win a stay from the United States Supreme Court. James C. Little, her attorney, said she wanted to die ''with as much dignity as the state of North Carolina will allow.''

    http://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/03/us...ince-1962.html

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Meet the 'Death Row Granny', one of America's most prolific female serial killers

    By VT

    When we picture a person responsible for some heinous crime - be it real or fictional - we probably imagine someone ice-cold and sinister: a loner, an aggressor, somebody who exudes a palpable sort of evil from every aspect of their demeanor. Think Christian Bale in American Psycho, for instance, or Ian Brady and Myra Hindley (the Moors Murderers).

    It just seems incomprehensible that someone who looks so "normal" - who looks nice, even - could possibly be a threat to their fellow friends and neighbours.

    So, when Velma Barfield (née Margie Velma Bullard), a seemingly sweet woman in her fifties, confessed to multiple murders, the world was stunned.

    Barfield was born in a rural part of South Carolina in 1932, but spent most of her childhood in the neighbouring North Carolina. By all accounts, her youth was not a particularly happy time, and her father was reportedly very abusive. In order to escape that lifestyle, she married young - being just 17 at the time - and went to live with her husband, Thomas Burke.

    Their marriage was a happy one at first. They had two children together, and appeared to be living a fairly contented lifestyle. However, later on in their relationship, Barfield had a hysterectomy, and subsequently developed an addiction to painkillers after the procedure left her with chronic back issues. This apparently caused a change in her personality which, in turn, caused her husband to turn to drinking.

    After that, the couple would have vicious arguments, and the tension between them only ended when their relationship did. And how did that happen? Well, one night in 1969, when Burke was passed out drunk on the couch, Barfield took their children out. By the time they returned, their home was burnt to the ground.

    From that point onward, Barfield's life was littered with a suspicious amount of death.

    In 1970 - mere months after the woman's first husband had perished in a fire - Barfield remarried, this time to a widower named Jennings Barfield. Once again, however, their relationship quickly deteriorated after he confronted her about her misuse of prescription drugs.

    Less than a year after they were married, the widower died after contracting a mysterious illness and suffering a heart attack.

    From the outside, it appeared as if Velma Barfield simply had bad luck when it came to choosing husbands - but she knew otherwise. Even so, other people didn't begin to suspect there had been any foul play until years later, by which point the woman had offed at least six people.

    Her next victim - shockingly - was her own mother.

    In 1974, Lillian Bullard (Barfield's mother) developed an aggressive illness, the symptoms of which were nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. She actually managed to recover from it once, but it struck again around Christmas time of the same year - and that time, she wasn't as lucky.

    After that, in 1977, three more people died after coming into contact with Barfield. Montgomery and Dollie Edwards, an elderly couple that Barfield worked for, passed away within weeks of one another, with Dollie suffering from exactly the same symptoms as her caretaker's second husband.

    With both her clients dead, Barfield had to take another caretaking job; this time for 76-year-old Record Lee, who had recently broken her leg. Lee actually survived Barfield's murder spree but her husband, John Henry, succumbed to a severe gastrointestinal illness that caused - you guessed it - severe nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting.

    In 1978, Barfield ended the life of her final victim. His name was Rowland Stuart Taylor and he was a relative of one of Barfield's previous targets, Dollie Edwards. The twice-widowed woman was in a relationship with Taylor, but was also using him by forging checks in his name. After fearing he might have found out about her illegal activity on her account, Barfield sorted the matter in the only way she knew how to by this point: murder.

    Taylor died the day after attending a church service with Barfield and, once again, everyone thought she was simply unlucky. This time around, however, a woman claiming to be Barfield's sister called police and informed them that she believed the widow had poisoned her boyfriend. In fact, she said, Barfield had killed several others before using the same method.

    Sure enough, after investigation, autopsy results found arsenic in Taylor's system, and tests performed on the bodies of John Henry, Lillian Bullard, Dollie Edwards, and Jennings Barfield all showed traces of the poison, too. Barfield would eventually confess to four of these murders, plus the murder of Montgomery Edwards, but always denied killing her second husband.

    She was never tied to her first husband's death, either, but it's always been suspected that she might have had a hand in it.

    In the end, Barfield was only convicted of the first-degree murder of Stuart Taylor - but that was enough to get her the death penalty. She spent six years on death row, during which time she became a born-again Christian and earned herself the nickname, the "Death Row Granny".

    She was the first woman ever to be put to death by lethal injection in the USA - much to the disagreement of anti-death penalty campaigners and fellow Christians who had asked for Barfield's sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment.

    Before she died, Barfield said: "I’m sorry for any hurt I’ve caused anybody. There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t think about this and wish that it were possible for me myself to take that hurt."

    To this day, she remains one of the most prolific female serial killers of all time.

    http://vt.co/news/weird/meet-the-dea...erial-killers/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Velma Barfield: The Life Of Death Row Granny

    There is no way to process how a beloved grandmother who attended every Sunday service in church can be described as the" Death Row Granny." Nevertheless, you couldn't make this up even if you wanted, as Velma Barfield became the 1st woman to be executed since the return of capital punishment in the United States.

    Though she was convicted for just 1 murder, she later admitted to 4 murders with 2 other suspected deaths from foul play. It was a hard pill to swallow for church leaders and her supporters, who called for the commutation of her sentence after her apologies and reformation behind bars.

    ''I know that everybody has gone through a lot of pain, all the families connected, and I am sorry, and I want to thank everybody who have been supporting me all these 6 years,'' stated Barfield in a statement right before her execution, reported New York Times.

    A Slippery Slope Into Darkness

    Though Barfield came from a modest background and was raised by well-mannered southern parents in North Carolina, she was reportedly abused by her on several occasions. As a result, the then 17-year-old Barfield eloped and married her high school boyfriend, Thomas Burke. Soon, the duo went on to have two children and lived in bliss until Barfield had an emergency hysterectomy while she worked at a textile plant.

    As a result, Barfield became dependent on Librium and Valium and ultimately became a drug addict. It didn't take long for the couple's relationship to sour after Burke started drinking heavily, followed by several bouts of arguments. That all ended on April 4, 1969, when the police and fire department responded to the couple's home, which had suddenly been consumed in a fire outbreak. At the time, it seemed like sheer luck when Barfield and the children had been out while Burke, who had passed out, was burnt to death.

    Problem Solved

    A year later, Barfield had finished grieving and was ready to get on the love train again. After moving back with her parents, she met a widower Jennings Barfield who had his own kids, and the 2 got married soon after. It wasn't long before Jennings Barfield noticed the behavior of the young mother and her drug addict, bouts of arguments rocked the newlyweds, and the subject of divorce was floated. Soon, Jennings Barfield met an untimely death on March 22, 1971, due to a mysterious illness and a heart attack.

    Again, Barfield moved back home with her parents before her father's demise to lung cancer. However, her mother died of a mysterious illness and suffered bouts of vomiting, diarrhea, and nausea.

    End Of A Metamorphosis


    Barfield seemed to have honed her skills of getting rid of her unsuspecting victims. In 1976, she took a job as a caretaker for Montgomery and Dollie Edwards. Within a year, the couple met an untimely demise, with the latter experiencing similar fatal symptoms as her mother. Next, Barfield worked for 76-year-old Record Lee due to a broken leg. Soon, her husband, John Henry, succumbed to his death following several bouts of vomiting and diarrhea.

    The Last Straw

    History would be replete as Barfield moved on with life with a new boyfriend, Rowland Stuart Taylor. Just before the duo headed to church, an argument ensued between the couple after Taylor discovered Barfield had been forging his checks and stealing his money. Unbeknown to him, Barfield offered him a bottle of beer with arsenic and rat poison. Soon, Taylor also met his demise after leaving the church and visiting the hospital in agony. At first, everyone assumed Barfield was just unlucky in life until her sister called authorities to inform them that the beloved church-going woman had also killed her mother in a similar fashion.

    As a result, investigators traced back the victims in Barfield's life that had succumbed to mysterious illnesses and found a common trend. They all died of arsenic and rat poison, according to their autopsies.

    Following the discovery, authorities arrested Barfield for the murder of Taylor. Soon after, she would confess to Taylor's death after her son confronted her about the accusations. She claimed she just wanted to make him sick. Later, she admitted to the other homicides except Jennings Barfield and Burke. However, authorities doubted Barfield since their autopsy told a different story.

    Barfield was later convicted of the murders and sentenced to death row. After the federal appeals court affirmed her sentence, Barfield told her lawyers to suspend any effort to continue the appeal at the U.S. supreme court.

    Behind bars, Barfield became a reformed Christian who had ministered to other inmates. Her repentance caught the attention of the late Billy Graham amid the media frenzy as Barfield would be the first woman to be executed since 1962.

    “Velma, in a way I envy you, because you’re going to get to go to heaven before I do,” said Graham just before she had her last meal, according to ATI.

    She was executed on November 2, 1984.

    (source: inquisitr.com)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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