Velma Barfield: The Death-Row Granny

Greed, selfishness, and an ever-increasing need to be in total control—once someone is consumed by these feelings, bad things can happen, and people can get hurt, or worse. We’ve seen situations like this crop up many times before, and in many of them, like today, there was a woman, cold and heartless, at the centre of it all.

I’ve written about several of them, each one just as horrible as the last. Nannie Doss, Judy Buenoano, and Beverley Allitt; all evil and all driven by their own selfish and self-fulfilling desires. And undoubtedly, this case is just as bad.

So, as the shadows engulf us yet again, let’s get into this tale of greed, fear, control, addiction, and murder. A tale of a woman who was consumed by all these things, and who showed not a single sign of remorse despite her so-called faith. And in the end, her selfish actions ended the lives of several people, all of whom either loved her dearly or depended on her for help. This is the tale of the Death-Row Granny. This is the tale of Velma Barfield.

All Rags, No Riches

Margie Velma Bullard was born in Eastover, Cumberland County, North Carolina, on October 29th, 1932. Her parents were Murphy and Lillie Bullard, and she was raised on a small tobacco and cotton farm in rural South Carolina, the second oldest of nine children. Even from an early age, Velma’s life was peppered with tragedies.

First, several of her siblings passed away at a young age, which by itself is horrific enough, but given what we know of Velma, it’s clear to see that because of this, she had a very early and profound understanding of the finality of death from a rather young age. One of her sisters contracted Polio, which left one of her arms and legs shrivelled up as a result of the disease, which taught Velma that there was something worse than death.

For as long as she could remember, Velma’s family was dirt poor, and her day-to-day life reflected that. They didn’t have any electricity or running water, things we all take for granted today. They also didn’t have a proper bathroom, or even an outhouse, simply a chamber pot in order to relieve themselves. She also didn’t have her own bedroom during her childhood or teen years, and had to share a bedroom with her parents.

And when she did go to school, Velma was relentlessly picked on and bullied, whether it was for the old clothes she wore or the minimal and less than appealing food she brought for lunch.

Throughout her childhood, Velma had to help out around the house, and had to do chores for hours on end, including keeping the house clean, mending clothes for everyone in the family, and washing and ironing all their clothes. And mind you, the family didn’t have a washing machine; they were too poor for a luxury such as that, so Velma had to wash all of their articles, one by one, by hand using a washboard, which would take her hours on end to complete. There were times when her father would even keep her home from school when there was extra laundry to do. This always infuriated Velma, as she enjoyed playing sports at school, yet her father didn’t approve and would always make her go home when he could to do more chores and housework.

“I never really felt like my mama or daddy ever wanted me, except for the work I did. I’ve always felt that they just really wanted me to be a slave.”

And speaking of her father, he was his own particular kind of hell for Velma and the rest of the family. Yup, it’s one of those cases again. While he was away most of the time working at a textile mill, Murphy Bullard was a cruel and angry man, especially when he’d been drinking. He was verbally abusive to his children and made a habit of punching his wife around the house when he got ticked off.

It was a daily occurrence, and always in front of their children, not a care in the world as to how it made them feel. And unfortunately, the kids weren’t spared this fate either, getting a stern belting to the buttocks if they ever stepped out of line or gave him sass, which Velma was known to do.

So yes, he was most certainly a piece of shit, but especially after one day when 13-year-old Velma stayed home sick from school, old Murphy, dear old dad, decided it would be a swell idea to have his filthy way with his own daughter. Yes, you read that correctly. He sexually assaulted his 13-year-old daughter, as if he couldn’t be any more deplorable. There had even been warning signs that he’d had those vile thoughts in his head, as Velma remembered times when her father would feel her up, and she was confused as to whether he had meant it to be sexual or not.

So it’s safe to say that Velma both hated and feared her father, no shock there, but she also hated her mother. Lillie Bullard was a very submissive woman, living under the belief that a wife’s place is to appease her husband, and she basically had to walk on eggshells in her own home to avoid his wrath being unleashed. And so when Murphy would fly into a rage, she would cringe away, take it, let him get all his anger out without fighting back. It didn’t help that Murphy was a terribly jealous man, flying off the handle anytime he thought his wife, his property, was off with another man or had even looked at another man.

Talk about hypocritical, as Murphy was a serial cheater, spending nights out in other women’s beds, all to his wife’s knowledge by the way, and yet she did nothing. Velma despised this, and she would confront her mother about it, lambasting her for her submissiveness. She believed that her mother was weak, that she was worthless for allowing Murphy to hurt her and the rest of the family, that she should be protecting her from him, yet she just didn’t.

In her further memoir, Woman on Death Row, Velma said as such: “I seemed to accept daddy’s high-tempered ways because I thought that’s the way men are. Mama should love their children and stand up for them, and Mama never stood up for me or any of us.”

As we can see, the seeds were already planted, right from a young age, though it would take some time for them to bear fruit.

There was one thing that gave Velma some hope and was able to keep her mind off her stressful home life: her local Baptist church. She dove deep into religion as an escape from her everyday strife, even being officially baptised soon after her 16th birthday in 1948. It was also in 1948 that she began dating a local boy by the name of Thomas Burke. Tall, lanky, handsome, the two of them had met when they were both 13.

Thomas was a part of the baseball games her father used to put together, and they fell for each other hard. Her father didn’t like this at all, not wanting his daughter to date until she had turned 16. A fair enough ruling, but given the fact that it was during that time he had assaulted her, perhaps there was a touch of jealousy under the surface?

Velma wouldn’t be denied, though; she was determined to date Thomas and she would be patient if she had to. And so she waited, and once her 16th birthday came and went, she and Thomas officially started dating. Her father allowed them to be together despite his reservations, but it would be under strict rules. First off, no solo dates; the two would always go on double dates with other couples, or they wouldn’t go at all.

Second, she was to be home by 10 pm, no later than that, or there would be hell to pay. On the surface, nothing too out of line, especially for a 16-year-old girl in her first actual relationship. I’d probably have something similar in place for my child, but it’s the controlling nature of her father and what he’d physically done to her in the past that spurred her forward into wanting to get out as soon as she could.

She wanted to get married, and she made that perfectly clear to Thomas. She wanted out, and she wanted him to take her with him. And Thomas, for all his naive, young foolishness at the time, was more than happy to oblige. It took a year for him to get everything prepared and the gumption for him to ask, but in 1949, after they’d both turned 17, Thomas took her on a date to the movies, where he popped the question.

She, of course, said yes, which caused a massive fight with her father. By the end of it, Murphy had broken down into tears, the thought of his little girl leaving him unbearable, and by December of that year, Velma and Thomas ran away to Dillon, South Carolina, where they officially eloped. Velma Bullard was now Velma Burke, and she now allegedly had the independence she so wantonly craved.

Married Life, Unhappy Wife

So, Velma and Thomas had tied the knot, and their happy matrimony had begun. After she’d moved in with Thomas and his parents, Velma finally felt a sense of peace and got to experience what a loving family actually looked and felt like. They even went to the same church together. Thomas seemed to want nothing more than to look after Velma, support her, and love her, even if it meant quitting jobs and moving house.

First, he quit his job at a textile mill in Red Springs and moved to Wade in order to be closer to Velma’s family. Then he took a job at a soft drink factory, all for Velma’s benefit. And when Velma took a short-lived job at a drug store, Thomas became upset, since he didn’t want her to work outside the home. This mentality would never fly today, but this was the past, and so Velma acquiesced.

Then, on October 12th, 1951, Velma gave birth to her first child, her son Ronnie, followed quickly by the birth of her daughter Kim on August 3rd, 1953. From all accounts, Velma adored her children. She doted on them, gave them all they could want, and could barely contain herself if she had to be away from them at all. She even took them with her every Sunday to church, determined for them to be devout Christians just like her.

These children would know God; that much she was going to make sure of. And once they started school, Velma made sure that she was involved. In need of a chaperone for a field trip? Velma would be there.

In need of help for a class project? Velma would lend a hand. Her kid’s friends needed a lift home from school? Velma was more than happy to.

On the outside, everything seemed peachy, right? A loving wife and a passionate mother, things were on the up, especially once Thomas actually built the family a house…so why is Velma the topic of a true crime case?

Well, the first domino fell in 1959. That day, Velma was out and about one night when, as she was walking the streets, she was struck full force by a drunk driver. She was able to recover, but the trauma, understandably, messed with her head and sent her into a spiraling depression.

So far, so normal—physical and mental trauma are staples in these stories. The next bit wasn’t as traumatic, but undoubtedly played a role in what was to come. Whether it was her wanting to make her own money or to get her mind out of her own thoughts, she took a job at a textile mill in Raeford.

It seems Thomas didn’t object this time, as money around the house was tight as is, and together they were able to make enough to move into a bigger, nicer house in the city of Parkton, but what little time Velma and Thomas had at home together was cut down even further, putting a strain on their relationship.

Then in 1962, Velma had a medical emergency that changed her life forever more. Perhaps it was after effects from getting struck by that car years ago, but Velma began having medical problems, particularly haemorrhaging down below. To counteract this, Velma underwent a hysterectomy.

For those who don’t know, a hysterectomy is the surgical removal of the uterus and cervix, at times even including the ovaries and fallopian tubes. So basically, this made her unable to have any more kids, something that both Velma and Thomas seemed to be okay with. They had agreed years earlier that their two children were more than enough, but the procedure still had its negative effects, both physically and mentally, on Velma.

While she initially believed she was fine with not having any more kids, being physically stripped of the ability to do so caused her to spiral deeper into her depression, since she felt that she was now less of a woman and that Thomas wouldn’t find her attractive anymore. But worse still, the procedure had left her with persistent chronic lower back pain, an issue that plagued her for the rest of her days. Her nerves were shot, she was snappy and irritable, and easy to anger over the smallest things.

Her temper only became worse when her husband was gone for hours on end, either at work or out with his friends once he joined the Jaycees.

Small note: the Jaycees, officially known as the United States Junior Chamber, is a leadership-development organization for young people, originally founded in 1920.

What really set Velma off, though, was Thomas’ drinking. Perhaps it was the stress from work, or maybe his strained relationship with the now ever-irritated Velma, but he’d taken up the bottle during this time, and became a full-fledged alcoholic, which clashed heavily with Velma’s religious beliefs. Before, Thomas Burke was a kind and understanding man, one who simply wanted his wife and kids to be happy, but now, with the alcohol, he’d begun to change, becoming more angry and gruff.

He and Velma would argue constantly while he was on the sauce, and at least on one occasion, he’d actually struck Velma in the middle of a liquor-fueled rage. It got to the point where Velma had to call the cops and had Thomas sent to Dorothea Dix State Hospital for his excessive drinking. This only soured their relationship even more, since Thomas felt embarrassed and enraged at being sent away by his own wife, to the point where his alcoholism actually got worse, costing him his job.

With the relationship at home getting worse and worse, Velma’s mental and physical health took a terrible turn. She was working as a clerk in a department store and a machine operator in a cotton mill, all while raising her children and dealing with her abusive drunk of a husband. And soon enough, in November of 1968, Velma couldn’t take it anymore, and she collapsed in the kitchen from shot nerves, exhaustion, and the ever-present and growing pain from her surgery. She ended up in hospital, and there she was given tranquillisers to help her manage the pain, and for the first time in a long while, Velma felt free from her pain and almost constant state of depression.

You see, Velma had lived with this pain for so long that any sort of relief felt like a godsend, and she was determined to hold onto that blissful feeling for as long as possible. They sent her home with a prescription for those same tranquilisers, and she was only to take one dose a day, enough to take the edge off once her pain got bad. Instead, she took them three times a day, to the point where she ran out quickly.

Now craving more, craving that artificial relief, she began visiting multiple doctors in order to get multiple prescriptions, frequently abusing all the medicine in order to lessen her suffering. A classic story of drug dependence taking hold, hysterically hypocritical given her holier-than-thou attitude towards her husband’s drinking, and sadly, it would only lead her down a far darker path.

In the words of expert criminologist Dr Elizabeth Yardley: “I think for the first time in her life, she’s found something that numbs her, that kind of takes away the pain and the depression, and all of those issues over which she has no control. So I think this is a problem which is just going to escalate. It’s only going to get worse.”

And it wasn’t long after that she’d lose her husband and her home.

On April 21st, 1969, Velma was out at work for the day, and the kids were off at school. All the while, Thomas was at home, drinking his sorrows away. At some point in his drunken haze, he lit up a cigarette, puffing on it without a care in the world, all while continuing to drink. But then, the alcohol got the best of Thomas, and he fell asleep, the cigarette still in his hand.

By the time Velma and the kids arrived back home, their house was partially burned down, and Thomas was already dead, aged 36. The cigarette had fallen from his hand, starting a fire that consumed him and part of the house, though the autopsy confirmed that he had passed from smoke inhalation before the fire could do the job.

Velma’s depression spiralled, and with it, so did her addiction. But that didn’t stop her from finding love again. In fact, she did so in record time. In November of 1969, she had moved back into the home Thomas had built for the two of them, and a coworker introduced her to her brother, a man named Jennings Barfield. The two of them hit it off right away, and less than a year after they’d met, Velma became Mrs Barfield.

From the get-go, and to no one’s surprise, things were rough. First off, Jennings suffered from a chronic lung disease and diabetes, and Velma became his primary caregiver after their marriage. This only added to the stress Velma was constantly under, and so she did even more drugs in order to numb herself through the coming months.

It got so bad that she overdosed on two separate occasions and needed to be hospitalized, at one point for up to a week. Jennings was just as miserable as Velma was, since he now had to deal with the effects of her addiction along with his own illnesses day in and day out. It got to the point where, only a few months into the marriage, he would tell members of his family that he was already deeply regretting tying the knot with her.

And then, just like that…it was all over. Throughout the month of March, while in the midst of divorce negotiations, Jennings became gravely ill, even more so than before. He started vomiting violently, developed terrible diarrhoea and painful stomach cramps, and at times had great difficulty breathing. His health only declined more and more with each passing day, with no one really paying much attention to it.

He had been sick for a very long time after all. And then on March 22nd, 1971, less than a year into his marriage with Velma, Jennings Barfield passed away, aged 54, and his death was chalked up to natural causes, namely heart failure due to a heart attack. How convenient this happened right as they were in the process of separating, and with Velma’s drug habit getting worse and worse…how convenient indeed.

A Spoon Full of Poison

After the death of Jennings, Velma’s life continued to spiral for several years. Right out the gate, she had another overdose in October 1971, one that nearly claimed her life and kept her in the hospital for three weeks. Two months later, in December 1971, she was not only fired from her job, but she also lost the house that Thomas had built for her. Now, without any other options, she moved back in with her parents, but it wouldn’t be long before her life was turned upside down again.

You see, her father, Murphy, the man who had tormented her and the rest of her family for so long, had been suffering from lung cancer for some time. It was only four months later, in April of 1972, that the cancer would claim his life, leaving Velma and her mother to live together and try to coexist, which they could not. Velma still held plenty of resentment towards her mother for how she never stood up for herself or her children when they were growing up.

As for Lillie, she was one of those people who, now that her children were grown, believed that she was owed for her work as a mother, making said children do whatever she wanted. She’d ask for Velma to constantly do things around the house, run errands for her, and wait on her hand and foot. Basically, ordering Velma around like she did when she was younger, only with a bigger sense of entitlement.

It was then that Velma started defrauding her mother. Being unemployed has quite the negative effect on one’s bank account, dontcha know, and Velma was running out of money fast. So in 1974, she decided it would be a brilliant idea to take out a loan for $1,000 in her mother’s name, forging Lillie’s signature and putting up her mother’s house for collateral. For clarification, while $1,000 is still a lot of money today, back in 1974, that equates to about $6,571.52 in today’s money.

Quite the pretty penny, and she wasn’t even finished. Once that money was good and wasted on pain pills, she did it again, taking out another $1,000 in Lillie’s name, this time with a loan on her car.

Geoffrey Wansell, a British author and journalist, explains that Velma took advantage of her mother for her own drug-fueled gain: “Her mother is a perfect mark. She can take out a loan on something that her mother owns, whether it’s a house or a car, and she wants to cover up the stealing to sustain the drug addiction. You have a woman literally in the spiral of addiction.”

But then things started to unravel. One day, Lillie received some rather conspicuous mail, and it informed her that she had outstanding loans on her car and on her house, and should she not pay the money back, her house would be seized and the vehicle would be repossessed. Lillie, of course, never took out a loan on her car or her house, and she thought there must be some sort of mistake. She told Velma about this nonsense, saying that she would get to the bottom of all of this.

Then, soon after receiving the letter, Lillie Bullard started feeling sick. Vomiting, cramping, diarrhoea, the whole shabang. Sound familiar? This continued all throughout December of 1974, her symptoms only getting worse by the day, to the point where she wasn’t even able to stand up anymore.

Eventually, she was taken to the hospital, but by then, there was nothing they could do. On December 30th, 1974, Lillie Bullard, at 64 years old, died while in the hospital in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The autopsy later performed on her didn’t come up with anything suspicious, and the doctors attributed her death to a heart attack. Much like Jennings.

A little too similar if you ask me.

Probably because both Jennings and Lillie had been on a steady diet of arsenic in their final days, courtesy of dear old Velma.

Surprise, surprise, the subject of our story is a cold-blooded killer. Who could have seen that coming? Her husband was giving her a hard time about her drug abuse and wanted to divorce her. She hated her mother and didn’t want her to find out that she was stealing from her.

The quickest way to make it all go away? A little bit of powdered poison mixed in with their meals, enough to get them sicker and sicker as time rolled by, until they both expired, much to Velma’s delight. And all she had to do was go to the pharmacy and pick up a bottle.

Even with her mother out of the way, though, Velma’s addiction didn’t get any better. With Lillie dead, she had the audacity to try and write a number of checks in Jennings’ name, thankfully all of which bounced. After those checks failed, Velma tried to end her own life, unfortunately unsuccessfully. She wouldn’t get away scot-free though, since all those fake checks eventually caught the eyes of the authorities.

She was arrested for check fraud and actually pleaded guilty, and was sentenced in March 1975 to six months at the Correctional Centre for Women in Raleigh, North Carolina. However, thanks to good behaviour, she only served about four months and was released in July of that year.

Now a free woman, but still craving her much-needed fix, Velma knew she needed to figure out a way to make money, and so she went on the hunt for employment. And what better way for a fraudster and poisoner to make an honest living than as a live-in caretaker/nurse for the elderly? Well, by November of 1975, that’s exactly what she did, and pretty soon she was hired to look after 93-year-old Montgomery Edwards at his home in Lumberton, North Carolina.

Montgomery’s ailments were many, from being blind and diabetic to being an amputee and a bedridden invalid; he needed as much help as he could receive in his final years. He lived with his wife, 83-year-old Dollie Edwards, but with her own advanced age, she’d grown too frail to properly care for him on her own any longer, hence the need for a live-in caretaker, and Velma moved in with the elderly couple to look after them both. For $75 an hour ($451.64 in today’s money), as well as free room and board, it was a pretty cushy job.

During this time, she was also introduced to Dollie’s nephew, a man by the name of Stuart Taylor. Keep that name in mind; it’ll become important shortly.

So Velma lived with and cared for both Montgomery and Dollie for two years, doing all she could to make sure they were comfortable. But of course, not everything was sunshine and rainbows here either. Velma wasn’t what you would call good at her new occupation; she was slow in her duties and would often laze about, preferring to relax instead of work.

While Montgomery was easy to deal with thanks to his disabilities, Dollie was another story. Critical, outspoken, and not scared to point out whatever she felt was wrong or out of place, she was on Velma like white on rice, calling her out about her laziness, and the poor quality of her work and service.

And so, when Montgomery, aged 95, passed away on January 29th, 1977, from his many illnesses, Velma and Dollie were left alone together. Dollie’s complaints increased in her grief, along with her suspicions that Velma had problems that she was bringing into her home, and Velma couldn’t take it any longer. The constant demeaning, the persistent criticisms, reminded her a bit too much of her mom; it was taking her control of the situation away, and she simply couldn’t have that.

So, when Dollie started puking and having terrible bouts of diarrhoea and stomach cramps, Velma was all too pleased to stand by and do nothing until Dollie passed away on March 1st, 1977, silencing her for good. A little bit of arsenic goes a long way.

A month later, Velma became the live-in caretaker of another couple. This time, it was 80-year-old John Henry Lee and his wife, 76-year-old Record Lee, who had a broken leg. With a wage of $50 a week, or about $267.31 today, she also negotiated that she would have time off on particular days, mostly to go to church and take care of her own business.

Not a bad gig, just as sound as the first one, and this time she didn’t have to deal with constant nagging every day. But something was always nagging at her, in her mind and over her whole body, the nagging need for her drugs, and in conjunction, the nagging need for more money for said drugs.

And so, only days after starting her new job, Velma forged a check in their name for $50. Again, a lot of money back then, and something that would quickly be noticed was missing. When they did take notice, and Record had no recollection of writing and signing this check, John called the police. Of course, the investigation goes absolutely nowhere, as no one could fathom where the money went and who could have forged this check.

Certainly, it couldn’t be the kind and caring Christian live-in nurse lady they just hired, no, don’t be silly.

And so for a couple of months, Velma simply continued to do this, little increments of cash coming out of the Lee’s bank accounts, eventually escalating to as much as $100 to $200. Each time, the Lees couldn’t understand what was happening, all while Velma watched and enjoyed it. You see, while Velma was still dealing with her drug issues, she’d also become addicted to something else: control.

These people depended on her, all the while she was stealing from them, and they could do nothing about it. She wasn’t suspected, she wasn’t questioned, nothing, all because she was a nice Christian woman taking care of a couple of elderly people.

To again quote Dr Yardley: “Barfield preys on the weak and the old and the innocent. And this tells me that she is a predator. She looks out for people’s vulnerabilities, and she exploits them. She lives a very parasitic kind of lifestyle. So she will take what she wants from people, and then she will move on. And it takes a certain kind of person to be able to do this time and time again. It takes somebody with no compassion, somebody with no empathy, somebody who is only looking out for themselves.”

And yet, Velma couldn’t keep this going forever. After several months of service and stolen money, she began to think that the Lees perhaps were starting to catch on to her. Because of this, she decided to deal with them in the same way she always had, with a spoonful of poison.

Specifically, she targeted John, and fed him a steady dose of arsenic over a couple of days. After enduring near-constant stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhoea for a few days, John Henry Lee passed away on June 4th, 1977, and like the other victims, his death was chalked up to a heart attack. Record, now alone and grief-stricken, never questioned Velma about the checks ever again, and Velma continued to work for and look after her until she quit in October of that year.

Satiated for now, Velma had made the decision to move back to Lumberton, rented a trailer to live in, and began working as a nurse’s aid in a local nursing home.

It was at this time that Velma would spark up a brand new relationship, one that ultimately would lead to her downfall.

Jailhouse Grandma

Remember Stuart Taylor? Dollie’s nephew, whom Velma was introduced to while taking care of the older couple? Well, Velma remembered him, and remembered that even though he was going through a divorce at the time, he had always treated her well and that he seemed to be a truly kind and sincere man. Just the kind of person Velma liked to dig her claws into. And so, she hatched a plan to get him to notice her. How? By staging a full-blown attack on herself!

At this stage, she’d been keeping in contact with him fairly regularly; they’d created a friendship, a rapport, with one another. So she has a good idea of how he would react should something allegedly happen to her. And so one night, she phoned the police. She concocted a whole story that someone had broken into her house, attacked her, and tied her up; she’d even put ropes around her wrists to make it look all the more convincing.

And oh, was she ever dramatic about it, screaming and crying and wailing on with the officers, playing up how traumatic the whole experience was for her. And once Stuart had found out about it, he leapt into action right away to come and comfort her. And what did ol’ Stuart do, the sweet man that he was, in order to protect her? Because her home clearly wasn’t safe any longer, he invited Velma to come and stay with him as long as she wished.

And just like that, Velma had him in her clutches. She knew she could manipulate him; she knew she could string him along for as long as she wished, all because he craved a truly loving relationship. You see, for poor old Stu, the ways of love had not been kind. His original marriage, while happy, had ended in the unfortunate death of his wife.

He’d tried marriage twice after, but each ended in divorce, and Stuart just never seemed able to find the right woman for him. He had two loving children, Alice and Billy, but he was still quite lonely, and he thought Velma might just be the one for him, poor man.

And so she moved in with him and had several of her personal possessions moved to his home. It took no time at all for the fake checks to begin. Chunks of cash would vanish from his account, all from forged checks with forged signatures, all to feed her drug habit, all while he was none the wiser. He was just happy to have her, to have what he believed was her love, all while she used this to her advantage, twisting him around her finger.

There were a couple of hiccups, though, ones that undoubtedly put the final wheel into motion. The first was when Stuart found letters that Velma had received and kept from her brief stay in prison. She hadn’t mentioned that she had been behind bars, which upset him greatly. And the second was the fact that Velma needed surgery, one that she never even told Stuart about.

She’d found a lump on her left breast, unfortunately benign, but it was worrisome enough for her to get an operation that removed most of said breast. And how did she pay for this procedure? With a forged check, of course.

Except this time, she got caught.

One day, Stuart came across one of these checks, one he knew he never wrote, with his forged signature on it. He confronted Velma about it, and he was upfront with her, telling her to never do it again, or else he would call the cops. Not only was this a threat to expose Velma and force her to face the consequences for her actions, but this was an affront to her sense of control over him and their life together.

She couldn’t let this stand, and so her plans were put into motion. She could have walked away, she could have let things lie and moved on, but she’d been found out, he knew too much, and she had to make sure she didn’t have to worry about him opening his mouth and ruining her life.

Soon after, while attending a gospel meeting led by famed TV evangelist Rex Humbard, Stuart started feeling terrible, mostly in his stomach and bowels. The two of them returned home, and Velma tried to care for him, but Stuart only got worse and worse, and so she contacted his family, namely his stepmother, his daughter, and his son. Soon enough, the pain became so awful that an ambulance had to be called, and Stuart was taken to the hospital.

Dennis Patterson is a former regional reporter for the Fayetteville Times, and he puts into words how I believe we all would question how someone could possibly do this to a loved one: “How do you make their cereal in the morning, and put in the cereal and the milk and the rat poison, and then sit there across the table from him and eat your cereal and watch them eat theirs and it not guilt you right to the limit that you’re watching yourself kill somebody? I can’t get my mind around that.”

While being “nursed back to health” by Velma, Stuart Taylor died on February 3rd, 1978, at only 56 years old. His family was devastated, and Velma did her best to play it up on her part, all while everyone was asking the all-important questions of how and why. It was put down as death by gastroenteritis, which in and of itself was odd. Beforehand, Stuart had been in perfect health, happy as can be, and this all had come on so fast.

And on top of everything, he was still young, at least too young to suffer and die from such an affliction. So alarm bells were already going off, and the idea of performing an autopsy was brought up. His family believed it was a good idea…including Velma, who is quoted as saying, “If you don’t do it, you’ll always wonder.”

Now, talk about curious: Velma, from what we’ve talked about and seen, wasn’t an inherently stupid woman. She’d shown herself to be both charming and cunning when she wanted to be…so why? Why suggest an autopsy if there was a distinct chance that the doctors would find something amiss with Stuart’s insides?

The arsenic would undoubtedly still be in his system; they would understand that he was poisoned, and all eyes would turn to her. Was she just so confident and delusional about her sense of control over the whole situation that she didn’t think it would mean anything? Or maybe this was simply a part of her performance, not wanting to raise suspicion and wanting to appear as the grieving girlfriend in front of everyone.

Appearances were everything to this crazy lady after all. Either way, Alice and Billy ordered the autopsy, and they indeed found arsenic in his system, along with clear long-term damage. He’d clearly been poisoned, not just recently, but over a consistent period of time, and only one person fit the bill with being able to do that to him, and to do so without him noticing.

And all the while, that one person was sitting with Alice and Billy as they sobbed and grieved at their father’s funeral, comforting them as her victim was sent to his final resting place, looking them dead in the face and saying, “He’s in a far better place.”

On March 10th, 1978, Velma Barfield was brought into the police station for questioning. She stayed there with the detectives, answering question after question for a number of hours. Eventually, they let her go home for the time being, but they still had their eye on her, they had their suspicions, and they knew they were right. Word quickly got around that the police were eyeing Velma for Stuart’s death, and eventually it made it back to Ronnie Burke, her son.

His mother was staying with an elderly friend named Mamie Warwick, living there rent-free in exchange for doing housework. The two of them had talked about this for weeks, and each time she assured her boy that she hadn’t done it, and he believed her. This was his mother after all. But now, on this day, sitting with her on her bed, she said something he never thought she would say, all while sobbing away.

“I only meant to make him sick.”

Sure, Velma, and I’m Shirley Temple.

After another attempted suicide on March 13th, 1978, this time stopped by her son, Velma seemed to realize the jig was up. And so, she asked Ronnie to drive her to the police station. She went in there, sat down with the detectives alongside her attorney, and gave a full confession as to several of her crimes, confessing to the murders of her mother, Lillie Bullard, and her charges Dollie Edwards and John Henry Lee. She never confessed to the killing of Jennings Barfield, but once his body was exhumed and examined, it was determined that there was arsenic in his system, confirming that she had more than likely killed him, too.

And so, Velma Barfield was formally arrested and charged with the murder of Stuart Taylor. On that same day, somehow, some way, she actually managed to have her attorney, along with one of the bailiffs of the jail, bring her prescription medication to stave off her addiction. Tell me how that works!

While awaiting trial, the state needed to determine if Velma was even mentally competent enough to stand trial, so she was sent to Dorothea Dix State Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina, for testing. She was there for five weeks, and in the end, she was determined fit for trial, which began on November 11th, 1978. It only lasted a week, the evidence and testimony were too conclusive, and on November 30th, 1978, the jury returned with their verdict.

Velma Barfield was convicted of the first-degree murder of Stuart Taylor. And as far as the sentence…the death penalty, a rarity for a woman even back then. She was the only female inmate on death row. It didn’t take long before a death row unit was created at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women, and Velma was subsequently moved there.

From there, Velma dove headfirst into her religious ways. She was always on for the church, but she became super devout, switching to Catholicism and leading sermons within the jail for the other inmates. Her reputation with the other prisoners got so good that many of them began calling her “Mama Margie.” She became that caring mentor figure to the younger ladies, very much that doting grandmother type, and she even claimed to view the other women as her adopted children.

Her efforts and good behaviour were so good that it even got the attention of some influential people, namely, famed evangelist Billy Graham. The two of them formed a rapport, and Velma became good friends with Billy’s wife, Ruth. It got to the point where their daughter, Anna Lotz, visited Velma in prison on a regular basis!

Because Velma had charmed Billy and Ruth so much and ingratiated herself so deep into their lives, Billy used his influence and the outcry from the Catholic community to make sure that Velma’s case was looked at again by the Supreme Court. They advocated for her death sentence to be commuted to life in prison, as did one Dorothy Otnow Lewis. A Professor of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine and an authority on violent behaviour, she provided testimony to the court that she believed that Velma was mentally ill, specifically that she was a case of dissociative identity disorder.

You know, multiple personalities. Apparently, there was a specific personality, named “Billy,” that had spoken to her, said Velma was a victim of sexual abuse, and was killing her “abusers” as revenge. Yeah, I smell bullshit too, especially given how many Billys there are in this story.

Couldn’t even come up with a more original name. Not only have we seen several monsters in the past try to claim this disorder as an excuse, but as someone with a loved one who actually has this condition, that’s not how that works at all. And thankfully, the presiding judge didn’t buy a lick of it, as when it came to “Billy” and this sudden claim of different personalities, he minced no words: “One of them did, I don’t care which one.”

With this latest attempt to escape the death penalty shut down, Velma decided that enough was enough. She went to her lawyers and, against their wishes, instructed them to drop all further appeals, wishing to wait for her execution and, in her words, “die with dignity.” Over the years, she was given many stays of execution, as is common, and eventually she was moved to Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina, to await her demise.

She still had her supporters, mostly from the devout Catholic community, and they pleaded with Governor Jim Hunt to consider granting her clemency. He refused, though, and so Velma’s execution date was set for November 2nd, 1984. When given the choice between lethal injection and the gas chamber, Velma chose the needle, as I think many of us would.

In preparation for the end, Velma was allowed to meet with her children and grandchildren, and in one final bid for mental peace and a sense of forgiveness, she wrote letters of apology to the families of all her victims, asking them to be delivered once she was gone. Small spoiler: no one wanted them.

Soon enough, the time had come. After being led into the room, she was allowed to wear what she wanted, that being a full pair of pink pajamas. And when asked if she had any final words, she kept it brief: “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.” And just like that, it was over.

Margie Velma Barfield, aged 52, after a final meal of Cheese Doodles and Coke, was executed by lethal injection on November 2nd, 1984, at Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina. With this, she became the first woman in the history of the United States to be executed by lethal injection. She was then laid to rest in a small, rural North Carolina cemetery near her first husband, Thomas Burke.

Wrap-Up

And there you have it, our story is at an end. Velma Barfield was a menace to all who had the misfortune of crossing her path. Addiction ran her life, drugs and control were the only things that mattered to her, anything to numb the ever-present pain, anything to feel like she had a modicum of power. She stole money from her significant others, she stole money from the folks she was meant to nurse for and look after, all to feed her all-consuming addiction.

The relief of the high, the freedom from her ever-present aches and pains, that was all she cared about. Well, perhaps not all, as she also cared about not being caught.

She enjoyed the sense of control she had over the elderly in her care, the way she played puppeteer over their lives and bank accounts. And when that was threatened, when her very freedom was put in peril, she turned to the most evil and final solution she could think of. As the old saying goes, dead men tell no tales, and Velma Barfield would have no tales told about her if she could help it. With a healthy dose of arsenic, their lips were sealed forever.

All the while, she presented herself as a loving mother, a devout Christian, and an upstanding member of her community. Not even her own loved ones were safe; they were just means to an end, that, or they just annoyed her too much. Her husband, her boyfriend, not even her own mother, was safe. And to think, had that autopsy not been performed, she probably wouldn’t have been caught for a long time.

So as we finish up and the darkness pulls back, let’s take a moment, as we always do, to remember the victims. These people did nothing wrong; they were simply senior citizens in need of help and care, in need of someone to aid them in their ailing years, and instead of an angel of mercy, they were visited by an angel of death. Jennings Barfield, Lillian Bullard, Dollie Edwards, John Henry Lee, and Stuart Taylor. May you all rest in peace, knowing the witch of a woman who ended your lives can’t hurt anyone else.

Key Takeaways

• Velma Barfield’s early life was marked by poverty, abuse, and tragedy, shaping her into a troubled individual.
• Barfield’s addiction to painkillers and desire for control led her to commit multiple murders using arsenic.
• She targeted vulnerable individuals, including her family members and elderly patients she cared for, to maintain her lifestyle and avoid detection.
• Barfield’s charm and religious devotion helped her evade suspicion and gain support, even while on death row.
• Her crimes were ultimately uncovered through autopsies and investigations, leading to her conviction and execution.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Velma Barfield?

Velma Barfield, born Margie Velma Bullard, was a serial killer known as the ‘Death-Row Granny.’ She was convicted of multiple murders and executed by lethal injection in 1984.

What was Velma Barfield’s early life like?

Velma Barfield was born into a poor family in rural South Carolina. She experienced a difficult childhood marked by poverty, bullying, and abuse from her father, who sexually assaulted her.

How did Velma Barfield’s first marriage end?

Velma Barfield’s first husband, Thomas Burke, died in a house fire caused by a cigarette while he was drunk. Velma’s depression and addiction to painkillers worsened after his death.

Who were Velma Barfield’s victims?

Velma Barfield’s victims included her second husband Jennings Barfield, her mother Lillie Bullard, her charges Dollie Edwards and John Henry Lee, and her boyfriend Stuart Taylor. She poisoned them with arsenic.

What was Velma Barfield’s method of murder?

Velma Barfield used arsenic to poison her victims, including her second husband, mother, charges, and boyfriend. She administered the poison over time, causing their deaths to appear natural.

How was Velma Barfield caught?

Velma Barfield was caught after her boyfriend Stuart Taylor’s family ordered an autopsy, which revealed arsenic in his system. She later confessed to several of her crimes during police questioning.

What was Velma Barfield’s sentence?

Velma Barfield was sentenced to death for the murder of Stuart Taylor. She became the first woman in the United States to be executed by lethal injection on November 2nd, 1984.

How did Velma Barfield’s religious beliefs influence her actions?

Velma Barfield was deeply religious and used her faith to manipulate others and maintain a public image of piety. She became super devout in prison, leading sermons and being called ‘Mama Margie’ by other inmates.

What was the impact of Velma Barfield’s crimes on her family?

Velma Barfield’s crimes had a devastating impact on her family, including her son Ronnie Burke, who initially believed in her innocence but later helped her turn herself in to the police.

How did Velma Barfield’s addiction to painkillers contribute to her criminal behavior?

Velma Barfield’s addiction to painkillers, stemming from her chronic back pain, drove her to steal money and commit fraud to support her habit. Her need for control and money led her to poison her victims.

Sources

• Original Casual Criminalist video: Velma Barfield: The Death-Row Granny
• Hero image source by Adbh266 / openverse, by-sa.