Margie Velma Barfield (
née Bullard; October 29, 1932 – November 2, 1984) was an American
serial killer
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A
*
*
*
* with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
who was convicted of one murder, but who eventually confessed to six murders in total. Barfield was the first woman in the United States to be executed after the 1976
resumption of capital punishment and the first since 1962.
She was also the first woman to be executed by
lethal injection.
Life and murders
Velma Barfield was born in rural
South Carolina
)'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
, but was raised near
Fayetteville, North Carolina. Barfield's father reportedly was
physically abusive and her mother, Lillian Bullard, did not intervene.
She escaped by marrying Thomas Burke in 1949.
The couple had two children and were reportedly happy until Barfield had a
hysterectomy and developed back pain.
These events led to a behavioral change in Barfield and an eventual
drug addiction
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use oft ...
.
Burke began to drink and Barfield's complaints turned into bitter arguments.
On April 4, 1969, after Burke had passed out, Barfield and the children left the house, and when they returned they found the structure burned and Burke dead.
In 1970, Barfield married a widower, Jennings Barfield. Less than a year after their marriage, Jennings died on March 22, 1971, from heart complications.
In 1974, Lillian Bullard, Barfield's mother, showed symptoms of intense
diarrhea
Diarrhea, also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having at least three loose, liquid, or watery bowel movements each day. It often lasts for a few days and can result in dehydration due to fluid loss. Signs of dehydration often begin w ...
,
vomiting
Vomiting (also known as emesis and throwing up) is the involuntary, forceful expulsion of the contents of one's stomach through the mouth and sometimes the nose.
Vomiting can be the result of ailments like food poisoning, gastroenteri ...
and
nausea
Nausea is a diffuse sensation of unease and discomfort, sometimes perceived as an urge to vomit. While not painful, it can be a debilitating symptom if prolonged and has been described as placing discomfort on the chest, abdomen, or back of the ...
, only to fully recover a few days later. Later that year during the Christmas season, Bullard fell ill again with the same symptoms, but died in the hospital a few hours after being admitted on December 30, 1974.
In 1975, Barfield was convicted of seven counts of writing bad checks and sentenced to six months in prison. She was released after serving three months.
In 1976, Barfield began caring for the elderly, working for Montgomery and Dollie Edwards in
Lumberton, North Carolina
Lumberton is a city in Robeson County, North Carolina, United States. As of 2020, its population was 19,025. It is the seat of Robeson County's government.
Located in southern North Carolina's Inner Banks region, Lumberton is located on the Lu ...
. Montgomery fell ill and died on January 29, 1977. Just over a month after the death of her husband, Dollie experienced symptoms identical to those of Bullard and died on March 1. Barfield later confessed to the murder of Dollie Edwards.
The following year, Barfield took another caretaker job, this time for 76-year-old Record Lee, who had broken her leg. On June 4, 1977, Lee's husband, John Henry, began experiencing wracking pains in his stomach and chest along with vomiting and diarrhea. He died soon afterward and Barfield later confessed to his murder.
Another victim was Rowland Stuart Taylor, Barfield's boyfriend and a relative of Dollie Edwards.
Fearing he had discovered that she had been
forging checks on his account, Barfield mixed an
arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, ...
-based rat poison into his beer and tea.
Edwards died on February 3, 1978, while she was "trying to nurse him back to health"; an autopsy found arsenic in Taylor's system.
After her arrest, the body of Jennings Barfield was
exhumed and found to have traces of arsenic, a murder that Barfield denied having committed.
Although she subsequently confessed to the murders of Lillian Bullard, Dollie Edwards, and John Henry Lee, she was tried and convicted only for the murder of Taylor.
Singer-songwriter
Jonathan Byrd is the grandson of Jennings Barfield and his first wife. His song "Velma" from his ''
Wildflowers'' album gives a personal account of the murders and investigation.
[Druckenmiller, Tom, "Off the Beaten Track: Jonathan Byrd – ''Wildflowers''", '']Sing Out!
''Sing Out!'' was a quarterly journal of folk music and folk songs that was published from May 1950 through spring 2014. It was originally based in New York City, with a national circulation of approximately 10,000 by 1960.
Background
''Sing Out ...
'', 45:4 (Winter 2002) p.134
Imprisonment and execution
Barfield was imprisoned at
Central Prison
Central Prison is a prison operated by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety in Raleigh, North Carolina. The prison, west of Downtown Raleigh, is on of land and is bounded by a double wire fence with a razor ribbon on top. The Departm ...
in
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southe ...
, in an area for escape-prone prisoners and mentally ill prisoners, as there was no designated area for women under
death sentence
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...
s at the time and she was the state's only female
death row inmate. A death row unit for female inmates in North Carolina was subsequently established at the
North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women
North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women (NCCIW) is the primary North Carolina Department of Public Safety prison facility housing female inmates on a campus in Raleigh, North Carolina, and serves as a support facility for the six other ...
.
During her stay on death row, Barfield became a devout
Christian.
Her last few years were spent ministering to prisoners, for which she received praise from
Billy Graham
William Franklin Graham Jr. (November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018) was an American evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s. He was a prominent evangelical Christi ...
.
Barfield's involvement in Christian ministry was extensive enough that an effort was made to obtain a
commutation to
life imprisonment.
A second basis for the
appeal was the testimony of
Dorothy Otnow Lewis, Professor of Psychiatry at
New York University School of Medicine
NYU Grossman School of Medicine is a medical school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1841 and is one of two medical schools of the university, with the other being the Long Island School of ...
and an authority on violent behavior, who claimed that Barfield suffered from
dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder (DID), better known as multiple personality disorder or multiple personality syndrome, is a mental disorder characterized by the presence of at least two distinct and relatively enduring personality states.
The di ...
. Lewis testified that she had spoken to Barfield's other personality, "Billy", who told her that Velma had been a victim of
sexual abuse
Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...
, and that he, Billy, had killed her abusers. The judge was unconvinced. "One of them did it," Lewis quoted him as saying "I don't care which one."
After Barfield's appeal was denied in federal court, she instructed her attorneys to abandon a further appeal to the
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
.
Barfield was executed on November 2, 1984, at Central Prison. She released a statement before the execution: "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."
Barfield chose as her
last meal
A condemned prisoner's last meal is a customary ritual preceding execution. In many countries, the prisoner may, within reason, select what the last meal will be.
Contemporary restrictions in the United States
In the United States, most states gi ...
Cheez Doodles
Cheez Doodles are a cheese puff produced by Wise Foods. Originally developed and manufactured in 1964 by King Kone Corp. of the Bronx, New York, it became the prevalent cheese puff snack on the East Coast.
Description
Cheez Doodles are a c ...
and
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlant ...
.
Barfield was buried in a small, rural North Carolina cemetery near her first husband, Thomas Burke.
Barfield's execution raised some political controversies when
Governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
Jim Hunt, who was challenging incumbent
Jesse Helms for his
U.S. Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
seat, rejected Barfield's request for
clemency
A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...
.
See also
*
Blanche Taylor Moore
Blanche Kiser Taylor Moore (born February 17, 1933) is an American convicted murderer and possible serial killer from Alamance County, North Carolina, Alamance County, North Carolina. Moore is awaiting execution in North Carolina for her boyfrien ...
– a similar murderer who was also from North Carolina
General:
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List of people executed in North Carolina
The following is a list of people executed by the U.S. state of North Carolina since 1984.
There have been a total of 43 executions in North Carolina, under the current statute, since it was adopted in 1977. All of the people executed were convict ...
*
List of serial killers in the United States
*
List of women executed in the United States since 1976
Since 1976, when the Supreme Court of the United States lifted the moratorium on capital punishment in '' Gregg v. Georgia'', 18 women have been executed in the United States. Women represent less than 1.15 percent of the 1,561 executions perform ...
References
Further reading
* Barfield, Velma. ''Woman on Death Row''. Thomas Nelson Inc. (May 1985). .
*
Bledsoe, Jerry. ''Death Sentence: The True Story of Velma Barfield's Life, Crimes, and Execution''. Dutton Adult (October 1, 1998). .
External links
*Noe, Denise
All about Velma Barfield ''
Crime Library
Crime Library was a website documenting major crimes, criminals, trials, forensics, and criminal profiling from books. It was founded in 1998 and was most recently owned by truTV, a cable TV network that is part of Time Warner's Turner Broadcas ...
''. Retrieved on 2007-11-17.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barfield, Velma
1932 births
1984 deaths
20th-century American criminals
20th-century executions by North Carolina
20th-century executions of American people
Christians from North Carolina
Criminals from North Carolina
Criminals from South Carolina
Executed American female serial killers
Executed people from North Carolina
Executed people from South Carolina
Mariticides
Matricides
People convicted of murder by North Carolina
People executed by North Carolina by lethal injection
People from Fayetteville, North Carolina
Organ transplant donors
Poisoners