This was not the face of a drug-crazed serial killer. Margie Velma Barfield had a shy smile, rosy cheeks, and the gentle rounded figure that would seem at home spooning out comfort foods at church suppers.
She was the kind of lady you'd expect to see bouncing her grandchildren on her knee at Easter, giving them gifts of hand-knit fluffy bunnies.
That's the image the world saw in 1984, except for one jarring detail.
The scene was set in a prison, and the woman was a condemned killer who had admitted to poisoning at least four people, including her own mother.
She was known as the "Death Row Granny."
Arsenic was her weapon, money her motive, and her excuse was the "devil made me do it." The devil, in this case, was a powerful addiction to the prescription drugs that she took to deaden the pain of a hardscrabble life in rural North Carolina.
Besides, she said, she never meant to kill anyone. She insisted she only meant to make them sick.
Fled home & married at 17
Born in 1932, Margie Velma Bullard was the daughter of a poor tobacco and cotton farmer, the second of 9 children. Her young years were hard, marred by poverty, an abusive father and submissive mother. She fled at the earliest possible moment, marrying at 17. The groom, Thomas Burke, was also a teenager, and both dropped out of high school to set up housekeeping.
Burke worked hard to support his family, which would soon include a son, Ronnie, and a daughter, Kim. For a time, the marriage thrived.
Then in 1966, disaster struck when Burke's father died. Thomas became despondent and took to the bottle. The couple fought constantly, and violently, about his drinking.
Depressed, Velma, as she was known, got a prescription for Valium, which led to a life-long addiction to mood-altering drugs. The downward spiral quickened when, in 1969, Burke passed out and died in a fire at home.
Soon after her husband's death, she met and married Jennings Barfield, in 1971. Barfield, much older than his new wife and plagued by diabetes, heart disease and emphysema, didn't last long. After a year of marriage, he keeled over at breakfast, apparently of a heart attack.
With no money, Velma had to move back home. Her father had died a few years earlier, so she lived alone with her mother, Lillie. The 2 women did not get along, and the bad times continued to roll.
Velma attracted another suitor, but the romance hadn't gone too far when he died, hit by a truck as he crossed a road.
As misfortune mounted, Velma stepped up her use of happy pills, forging prescriptions to make sure she had an ample supply to help her cope with life's endless cruelties.
At Christmas 1974, Lillie asked one of her sons about an odd letter she had received. It was from a finance company, telling her that her loan was overdue. The problem was, Lillie said, she had never taken out a loan.
There was little time for an investigation. A few days later, Lillie was rushed to the hospital, in pain and delirium. She died a few days before the New Year.
On her own, Velma soon figured out a way to support her drug habit. She wound up with three months in jail for writing bad checks.
Upon her release, she took work as a caretaker for an ailing elderly couple, Montgomery and Dollie Edwards. Montgomery, 94, died within the year, in January 1977. At 86, Dollie was much sturdier than her husband had been, but within a month, she seemed to have caught the same affliction that had killed her husband - complete with chills, fever, nausea and violent stomach upset. She followed him to the grave in late February.
Velma was soon in the employ of 2 more frail seniors, John Henry Lee, 80, and his wife, Record, 76, of Lumberton. By June, John Henry had been struck with a mysterious, fatal illness.
Shortly after his funeral, Record fell ill, but recovered and went home. By that time, Velma was no longer there to care for her. She had quit to take up with Stuart Taylor, a 56-year-old tobacco farmer, once widowed, once divorced.
Taylor let Velma move into his home. Although not a religious man, he was proud to accompany his new girlfriend, 10 years his junior, to a revival meeting on Jan. 31, 1978. Sometime amid the "hallelujahs" and "praise the Lords," Taylor became queasy, then violently ill. A few days later, he was dead.
Velma wept at the funeral, and gave Taylor's children a shoulder to cry on.
Imagine their shock when she was arrested for his murder.
'Somebody's got to stop her'
An anonymous call had tipped off the police, according to "Death Sentence," a book on the case by Jerry Bledsoe. "Somebody's got to stop her," the caller said, insisting that Velma had murdered Taylor, and that he was one of a string of victims. Asked how she knew, the caller said, "Velma is my sister."
Investigators began to probe the trail of death that followed the pill-popping widow. It was not terribly surprising when an autopsy found arsenic in Taylor's body. Deadly doses of arsenic were also found in the exhumed bodies of Velma's mother, Lillie, Dollie Edwards, John Henry Lee and Jennings Barfield.
Confronted with these facts, Velma confessed to 4 killings - Taylor, Edwards, Lee and her own mother.
Spiked beer with rat poison
She went on trial on Nov. 27, 1978, charged only with Taylor's murder. There was motive, circumstantial evidence and a confession, in which she described how she had slipped rat poison into her boyfriend's beer.
The question before the jury became one of intent. Velma asserted that she had stolen money from each of her victims. Making them ill, she said, was the only way she could buy time to pay them back.
That theory collapsed when the prosecution pointed out that there is a treatment for arsenic poisoning. As Taylor was writhing in agony at the hospital, Velma pretended to know nothing. Had she been interested in keeping him alive, Velma would have told the doctors what really was wrong with him, and they might have been able to save him.
Her strength was in her sweet, befuddled grandmotherly image, but that took a crushing blow when she took the stand, and the prosecutor laced into her. She responded with sarcasm and snarls, destroying the one thing - her facade - that might have kept her off death row.
The jury took a little over an hour to find her guilty, and came to a similarly speedy decision to fix the penalty at death.
While her attorneys filed appeals, Velma found the Lord, as have legions of the condemned, and penned a memoir, in which she admitted to the murder of one husband, Jennings Barfield. As for her first husband, Velma confessed that she had put a lighted cigarette or match on the bed before she left to do the laundry.
National media coverage showed the two faces of this unlikely Death Row inmate, sparking furious debates on capital punishment. "Cold Killer or Loving Grandma?" one headline asked.
Political winds were in her favor, as the liberal Democratic Gov. James Hunt waged a battle for the Senate seat held by Republican Jesse Helms. Executing a granny on the eve of a tight election was the last thing Hunt needed. In the end, though, the governor was not swayed.
"Death by arsenic poisoning is slow and agonizing. ... I cannot in good conscience justify making an exception to the law." Hunt would later lose his bid for the Senate seat.
Velma maintained her image as a lady to the end, which came on Nov. 2, 1984. She wore pink pajamas with embroidered flowers, as she earned the distinction of being the country's first woman to be executed since 1962, and the first to die by lethal injection.
Source: New York Daily News, May 4, 2009
She was the kind of lady you'd expect to see bouncing her grandchildren on her knee at Easter, giving them gifts of hand-knit fluffy bunnies.
That's the image the world saw in 1984, except for one jarring detail.
The scene was set in a prison, and the woman was a condemned killer who had admitted to poisoning at least four people, including her own mother.
She was known as the "Death Row Granny."
Arsenic was her weapon, money her motive, and her excuse was the "devil made me do it." The devil, in this case, was a powerful addiction to the prescription drugs that she took to deaden the pain of a hardscrabble life in rural North Carolina.
Besides, she said, she never meant to kill anyone. She insisted she only meant to make them sick.
Fled home & married at 17
Born in 1932, Margie Velma Bullard was the daughter of a poor tobacco and cotton farmer, the second of 9 children. Her young years were hard, marred by poverty, an abusive father and submissive mother. She fled at the earliest possible moment, marrying at 17. The groom, Thomas Burke, was also a teenager, and both dropped out of high school to set up housekeeping.
Burke worked hard to support his family, which would soon include a son, Ronnie, and a daughter, Kim. For a time, the marriage thrived.
Then in 1966, disaster struck when Burke's father died. Thomas became despondent and took to the bottle. The couple fought constantly, and violently, about his drinking.
Depressed, Velma, as she was known, got a prescription for Valium, which led to a life-long addiction to mood-altering drugs. The downward spiral quickened when, in 1969, Burke passed out and died in a fire at home.
Soon after her husband's death, she met and married Jennings Barfield, in 1971. Barfield, much older than his new wife and plagued by diabetes, heart disease and emphysema, didn't last long. After a year of marriage, he keeled over at breakfast, apparently of a heart attack.
With no money, Velma had to move back home. Her father had died a few years earlier, so she lived alone with her mother, Lillie. The 2 women did not get along, and the bad times continued to roll.
Velma attracted another suitor, but the romance hadn't gone too far when he died, hit by a truck as he crossed a road.
As misfortune mounted, Velma stepped up her use of happy pills, forging prescriptions to make sure she had an ample supply to help her cope with life's endless cruelties.
At Christmas 1974, Lillie asked one of her sons about an odd letter she had received. It was from a finance company, telling her that her loan was overdue. The problem was, Lillie said, she had never taken out a loan.
There was little time for an investigation. A few days later, Lillie was rushed to the hospital, in pain and delirium. She died a few days before the New Year.
On her own, Velma soon figured out a way to support her drug habit. She wound up with three months in jail for writing bad checks.
Upon her release, she took work as a caretaker for an ailing elderly couple, Montgomery and Dollie Edwards. Montgomery, 94, died within the year, in January 1977. At 86, Dollie was much sturdier than her husband had been, but within a month, she seemed to have caught the same affliction that had killed her husband - complete with chills, fever, nausea and violent stomach upset. She followed him to the grave in late February.
Velma was soon in the employ of 2 more frail seniors, John Henry Lee, 80, and his wife, Record, 76, of Lumberton. By June, John Henry had been struck with a mysterious, fatal illness.
Shortly after his funeral, Record fell ill, but recovered and went home. By that time, Velma was no longer there to care for her. She had quit to take up with Stuart Taylor, a 56-year-old tobacco farmer, once widowed, once divorced.
Taylor let Velma move into his home. Although not a religious man, he was proud to accompany his new girlfriend, 10 years his junior, to a revival meeting on Jan. 31, 1978. Sometime amid the "hallelujahs" and "praise the Lords," Taylor became queasy, then violently ill. A few days later, he was dead.
Velma wept at the funeral, and gave Taylor's children a shoulder to cry on.
Imagine their shock when she was arrested for his murder.
'Somebody's got to stop her'
An anonymous call had tipped off the police, according to "Death Sentence," a book on the case by Jerry Bledsoe. "Somebody's got to stop her," the caller said, insisting that Velma had murdered Taylor, and that he was one of a string of victims. Asked how she knew, the caller said, "Velma is my sister."
Investigators began to probe the trail of death that followed the pill-popping widow. It was not terribly surprising when an autopsy found arsenic in Taylor's body. Deadly doses of arsenic were also found in the exhumed bodies of Velma's mother, Lillie, Dollie Edwards, John Henry Lee and Jennings Barfield.
Confronted with these facts, Velma confessed to 4 killings - Taylor, Edwards, Lee and her own mother.
Spiked beer with rat poison
She went on trial on Nov. 27, 1978, charged only with Taylor's murder. There was motive, circumstantial evidence and a confession, in which she described how she had slipped rat poison into her boyfriend's beer.
The question before the jury became one of intent. Velma asserted that she had stolen money from each of her victims. Making them ill, she said, was the only way she could buy time to pay them back.
That theory collapsed when the prosecution pointed out that there is a treatment for arsenic poisoning. As Taylor was writhing in agony at the hospital, Velma pretended to know nothing. Had she been interested in keeping him alive, Velma would have told the doctors what really was wrong with him, and they might have been able to save him.
Her strength was in her sweet, befuddled grandmotherly image, but that took a crushing blow when she took the stand, and the prosecutor laced into her. She responded with sarcasm and snarls, destroying the one thing - her facade - that might have kept her off death row.
The jury took a little over an hour to find her guilty, and came to a similarly speedy decision to fix the penalty at death.
While her attorneys filed appeals, Velma found the Lord, as have legions of the condemned, and penned a memoir, in which she admitted to the murder of one husband, Jennings Barfield. As for her first husband, Velma confessed that she had put a lighted cigarette or match on the bed before she left to do the laundry.
National media coverage showed the two faces of this unlikely Death Row inmate, sparking furious debates on capital punishment. "Cold Killer or Loving Grandma?" one headline asked.
Political winds were in her favor, as the liberal Democratic Gov. James Hunt waged a battle for the Senate seat held by Republican Jesse Helms. Executing a granny on the eve of a tight election was the last thing Hunt needed. In the end, though, the governor was not swayed.
"Death by arsenic poisoning is slow and agonizing. ... I cannot in good conscience justify making an exception to the law." Hunt would later lose his bid for the Senate seat.
Velma maintained her image as a lady to the end, which came on Nov. 2, 1984. She wore pink pajamas with embroidered flowers, as she earned the distinction of being the country's first woman to be executed since 1962, and the first to die by lethal injection.
Source: New York Daily News, May 4, 2009
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