Velma Barfield Confesses To Seven Murders

Velma Barfield was a female serial killer from North Carolina who was executed for a murder and would later confess to six more.

Velma Barfield first marriage was to Thomas Burke who had a problem with alcohol while Velma was struggling with a drug addiction. Velma would take the kids and leave however when she returned the house and Thomas Burke were lost to a fire

Velma Barfield would then marry Jennings Barfield who would die a year later from heart complications

Velma Barfields mother Linda would start to have health problems and would be admitted to the hospital and later released. A year later Linda was readmitted to the hospital with the same symptoms and would pass away

Velma Barfield began to care for the elderly working for Montgomery and Dollie Edwards. Dollie Edwards would die a few month later

Velma Barfield would start to work for an elderly couple Record and John Lee, John would pass away a few months later

Velma Barfield began to date Rowland Stuart Taylor who was a relation to Dollie Edwards, she began to steal from him shortly after and decided the best way not to get caught was to kill him. Velma would poison him with arsenic

Velma Barfield would be arrested and charged for the murder of Rowland Stuart Taylor. Authorities took a closer look at her life and would exhume the bodies of her second husband Jennings Barfield and turns out he had arsenic in his system.

Velma Barfield would be convicted of the murder of Rowland Taylor and sentenced to death. She would later confess to the murders of Linda Bullard, Dollie, and John Henry Lee.

Velma Barfield was executed on November 2, 1984

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Velma Barfield Execution

After two marriages ended with the death of her husbands, by 1977 Velma 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 Barfield 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.

Velma 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). Barfield 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.

Velma 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.

http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/barfield029.htm

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Velma Barfield Case

A series of “mysterious deaths” surrounded a woman executed 40 years ago in North Carolina, historians said. Margie “Velma” Barfield — nicknamed “Death Row Granny” — wore pink pajamas as she was put to death on Nov. 2, 1984. Barfield was convicted of murder and had also confessed to fatally poisoning at least three other people, according to the News & Observer and other news outlets. “Interestingly, her two husbands also died under unusual circumstances,” the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources wrote in a blog post. “Though it was believed she had a hand in those deaths as well, she denied accusations to that effect.” Here’s what we know on the anniversary of the Barfield’s execution. Who was ‘Death Row Granny?’ Barfield was born on a South Carolina farm in 1932 and has ties to Cumberland County, North Carolina, a roughly 70-mile drive south from Raleigh. She had been married twice before becoming engaged to tobacco farmer Stuart Taylor. But his life was cut short in 1978, when he went to a hospital with severe stomach pain and died, according to historic records and news reports. “After her arrest and the subsequent investigation, authorities discovered a pattern of mysterious deaths around Barfield,” state historians said. Before Taylor’s autopsy report was finalized, Barfield reportedly confessed to killing Taylor and at least three other people with arsenic, according to University of North Carolina University Libraries and news reports. Those who died in her circle included:

Barfield’s mother, who died after complaining of a stomach illness Montgomery and Dollie Edwards, an older couple whom Barfield had cared for as a home heath nurse John Henry Lee, Barfield’s patient who died from what doctors believed was a “severe stomach virus.” “She claimed that she had killed them in order to cover up the fact that she had stolen money from them to support her illicit drug use,” UNC University Libraries wrote on its website.

The cases brought attention to Barfield’s past husbands, who had died years earlier. Her first husband survived a serious car crash but died in a house fire in 1969. Her second husband, who died of heart failure in 1971, was later exhumed and found to have arsenic in his remains, UNC University Libraries and the Washington Post reported.

Barfield only went to trial in the death of Taylor, who died after his beer was laced with bug killer, according to The New York Times and other sources. She was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. After the sentencing, her attorneys reportedly appealed, arguing that Barfield’s drug use made her unaware that her actions could lead to death. In prison, she “became a born-again Christian and began to minister to fellow inmates and guards,” historians wrote. She was denied clemency and at age 52 became the first woman in the country to be put to death by lethal injection. The day of her execution at Raleigh’s Central Prison, Barfield apologized for “all the hurt I have caused” and requested a final meal of Coca-Cola and cheese puffs, according to The New York Times and The Washington Post.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article294714154.html