00:00:03
[daunting music] NARRATOR: In February 1978,
56-year-old Stuart Taylor suffered a slow
and painful death.
00:00:12
With the consent of
his family and partner, doctors performed
an autopsy to find
00:00:17
out what had led to the
sudden downturn in his health. They decided to
do that in that case
00:00:24
simply because of his
reaction and found out that he had been poisoned with arsenic.
00:00:32
NARRATOR: Stewart
had been targeted by his partner, 45-year-old
grandmother Velma Barfield.
00:00:39
The kindly looking
churchgoer had been leading a
secret double life, funding a drug addiction
by stealing from others
00:00:48
before killing them. Barfield is a chameleon. She simply blends in
to her surroundings,
00:00:55
so much so that
nobody ever suspects that she's defrauding the
people that she's caring for.
00:01:01
She is this good
Christian woman. And nobody would ever think
that she's capable of the things
00:01:07
that are going on. NARRATOR: The murder
of Stuart Taylor would expose Barfield's
life of crime.
00:01:13
She had poisoned and
killed five people, including her own mother. This is a serial killer
who knows no bounds
00:01:22
and also is perfectly
happy to do whatever it needs to sustain
the image that she
00:01:28
wants to project of herself. NARRATOR: Velma
Barfield had been unmasked as one of the
world's most evil killers.
00:01:36
[daunting music] In November 1984,
52-year-old Velma Barfield was executed via
lethal injection
00:02:06
in Raleigh, North Carolina. Years earlier, the so-called
Death Row Granny had confessed
00:02:12
to killing four people. But evidence linked her to
at least five, one of whom was her own mother.
00:02:21
Journalist Dennis Patterson
visited the killer while she awaited her fate on death row.
00:02:30
When you sat down to talk to
her, she's very quiet and very soft-spoken and very sincere.
00:02:37
And you could almost believe
she was a victim of something. She would talk about
being ready to meet God
00:02:46
and that she had
tried to help others. And I believed her. It wasn't a question
of whether I thought
00:02:52
she was not telling the truth. It just-- it didn't
make up for the crime. NARRATOR: Dennis went on to
witness Barfield's execution
00:03:02
firsthand. He'd followed the
story since her arrest for the murder of her partner,
Stuart Taylor, in 1978.
00:03:10
Barfield had
poisoned him slowly. DENNIS PATTERSON: How
do you make their cereal
00:03:15
in the morning and put in the
cereal and the milk and the rat poison and then sit there
across the table from him
00:03:22
and eat year cereal and watch
them eat theirs and it not guilt you right to the
limit that you're watching
00:03:30
yourself kill somebody. I can't get my mind around that. NARRATOR: This killer
story begins in Cumberland
00:03:44
County, North Carolina. Margie Velma Bullard was born
on the 29th of October 1932.
00:03:52
The eldest girl in a family
of nine children, life was difficult from the outset.
00:03:59
Barfield's childhood
was peppered with tragedy. Some of her siblings
died in infancy.
00:04:04
Another sibling was quite
disfigured because of polio. So all of these things will
have had an impact on her.
00:04:12
This was not the idyllic
American childhood. These were the years after
the Great Depression.
00:04:19
The family were
literally dirt poor. The house had no electric
heating, no hot water.
00:04:26
It was a really tough existence. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: She
felt a sense of shame because her family
weren't very well to do.
00:04:33
The children at school would
make fun of her clothes and the kind of foods that
she took in to eat for lunch.
00:04:39
I think that shame
cemented itself. And I think it impacted
on the woman she'd become.
00:04:46
NARRATOR: Growing
up, Barfield tried to avoid being on the wrong
side of her hot-tempered father,
00:04:52
whom she feared
throughout her young life. Looking at Barfield's
parents, her father was very
00:05:00
dominant, very patriarchal. And her mother was
incredibly submissive. So she comes from this
very traditional set-up.
00:05:08
And when we look at
her father's behavior, he seems to be quite abusive
in terms of the control
00:05:15
that he has over
the family unit. And Barfield's mother
feels like she's constantly
00:05:20
treading on eggshells
the whole time, trying not to upset her husband. And Barfield becomes quite
frustrated at her mother
00:05:27
when she sees how
submissive she's being and that she's not
standing up for herself.
00:05:33
I think she thought her
mother should have done better, that she should have fought
back, protected her children
00:05:41
more against this violent
man with a bad temper, who did what he wanted. NARRATOR: Barfield found
church to be a refuge
00:05:50
from her wretched home life. And in 1948, the
16-year-old found another possible escape route
from her tyrannical father.
00:06:00
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Barfield meets Thomas Burke as part of the baseball
games that her father
00:06:05
used to organize. He was involved in these, too. And when Barfield's
father finds out
00:06:12
that she has this relationship
with Thomas Burke, he wants to put a stop to it. He doesn't want her dating
before she's 16 years old.
00:06:20
But Barfield is
absolutely determined. And when she's 17, she does
start dating him again.
00:06:27
But there are some
strict conditions on it. She's always got to
go out and double
00:06:31
date with another couple. She's always got to
be home by 10:00 PM. So even though she's
getting what she wants,
00:06:37
there are still those
restrictions on her. And I think that is part of
what fuels her to want to get
00:06:43
married so young. She wants out of
this family unit. And she thinks that marriage
is the pathway to independence.
00:06:51
NARRATOR: The two teenagers
eloped in December 1949 and went on to have
two children together.
00:06:59
But married life was far
from ideal for Barfield. Her husband was a
drinker, which went
00:07:05
against her Christian beliefs. And in April 1969,
tragedy struck. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
According to the legend,
00:07:14
he'd gotten drunk, fallen
asleep on the sofa. And a cigarette has
fallen onto the floor.
00:07:22
Velma is out. The children are out at school. The house burns down. And Thomas Burke loses
his life in the fire.
00:07:35
NARRATOR: As the 1960s
became the 1970s, Velma Barfield was widowed and
hiding a growing addiction.
00:07:43
Back in 1962, a hysterectomy
had left her in constant pain and suffering from depression.
00:07:51
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
What actually happens then is that her
imbalance in personality
00:07:57
seizes on prescription medicine
as a way of easing the pain. And she goes from
doctor to doctor
00:08:05
to get different drugs
at different times so that she can
increase her own use. So rather than
become an alcoholic,
00:08:14
she becomes effectively
a drug addict. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think for
the first time in her life,
00:08:19
she's found something
that numbs her, that kind of takes away
the pain and the depression
00:08:25
and all of those issues over
which she has no control. So I think this
is a problem which
00:08:31
is just going to escalate. It's only going to get worse. NARRATOR: Less than 10 years
after losing her first husband,
00:08:41
Velma Barfield's life had
spiraled out of control. By March 1978, she was working
as a carer in Lumberton, North
00:08:49
Carolina, and had begun
to fund her painkiller addiction by stealing
from the people
00:08:55
she was meant to be protecting. And Barfield was hiding
an even bigger secret. DENNIS PATTERSON:
I was covering,
00:09:02
if I remember
correctly, a meeting, government meeting, in the
courthouse of Robeson County.
00:09:07
And a law enforcement
fellow that I knew passed me in the hallway
and asked if I had checked
00:09:12
the arrest sheets that evening. I said, no, I hadn't. And he said, well, you might
want to go by and check.
00:09:18
And of course, for
a reporter, that's always a sign that
you ought to do what somebody suggests you do.
00:09:25
So I went back and checked. And sure enough, going down
through the sheet, and here
00:09:29
is this older woman
who's been charged with first-degree murder. NARRATOR: A post-mortem on
56-year-old Stuart Taylor
00:09:40
revealed that his body had
been riddled with arsenic. Investigators believed
he'd been poisoned
00:09:47
by his partner, Velma Barfield. DENNIS PATTERSON:
The investigation was very high profile.
00:09:53
It was just so
unusual having a woman with a sterling reputation, who
worked for elderly patients,
00:10:01
who was a regular
churchgoer, wouldn't even work on the evenings
or days that church
00:10:06
was going on because of
her religious beliefs. It was just a very unusual case. NARRATOR: A deeper delve
into Barfield's backstory
00:10:16
suggested that maybe Stuart
Taylor wasn't her only victim. DENNIS PATTERSON: So I
started getting calls
00:10:22
from people saying
she's been associated with a number of deaths
that are sort of unusual.
00:10:27
I know one fellow had
said she had at least one, two husbands that had died
under unusual circumstances.
00:10:34
Her mother had passed
away sort of unexpectedly. NARRATOR: As the rumor
mill continued to turn,
00:10:40
Barfield had more secrets
to reveal to detectives. After she's charged,
Velma surprises
00:10:47
the authorities by confessing
to three other killings-- her mother, Dolly Edwards,
and John Henry Lee.
00:10:57
DENNIS PATTERSON:
And that sort of just cemented it to the
investigators that, yeah, we're
00:11:02
dealing with somebody here
who, this is not a one-off, a personal situation. This is a practice
that's been going on.
00:11:14
NARRATOR: Velma
Barfield's confessions had stunned detectives. She had admitted to killing
her mother, her partner,
00:11:21
and two of the
vulnerable people she was meant to be looking after. Investigators were
only just beginning
00:11:28
to scratch the surface
on the deathly past of the 45-year-old, a life
of fraud, lies, and murder.
00:11:37
In March 1978,
45-year-old Velma Barfield was charged with the murder
of her partner, Stuart Taylor.
00:11:46
But her life of crime had
begun eight years previously. In August 1970,
she married the man
00:11:54
whose name she would take on in
the future, Jennings Barfield. Jennings suffered from
emphysema and diabetes.
00:12:02
And his new wife effectively
became his carer, too. GEOFFREY WANSELL: During her
marriage to Jennings Barfield,
00:12:10
it could best be described as
a tempestuous relationship. She was still
overdosing on drugs.
00:12:16
He would take her to hospital. They were going to divorce. And then how
convenient, he dies.
00:12:23
NARRATOR: In April
1971, after less than a year of marriage to his wife,
54-year-old Jennings Barfield
00:12:31
developed a sudden
illness and died. GEOFFREY WANSELL: No one
pays very much attention.
00:12:36
He had been ill for a long time. It was obviously natural causes. And Velma is just now a widow,
in fact now twice widowed.
00:12:46
NARRATOR: Later that same
year, 39-year-old Velma Barfield's prescription
drug addiction
00:12:52
was reeling out of control. She lost her job, her home,
and, not long after, the man
00:12:59
who'd made her
childhood so traumatic. Her father, Murphy, dies
of lung cancer in 1972.
00:13:07
And before long, Velma moves
back in with her mother, Lily. They have a very
combative relationship
00:13:15
to put it politely. Barfield always had a very
antagonistic relationship with her mother, Lily, because
she felt that she was put upon.
00:13:24
She felt that Lily was
making demands of her, that she should be
running around for her,
00:13:28
doing chores, looking after her. And there's a particular
period of time in 1974
00:13:35
where that had
indeed been going on. And it's at this time that
Lily becomes quite ill.
00:13:43
She develops really
bad stomach cramps. She's vomiting. She has diarrhea. She's very, very unwell indeed.
00:13:50
And Barfield takes
her to hospital. And she spends a few
days in hospital. And then she's discharged.
00:13:55
And that seems to be
the end of the matter. NARRATOR: As a way of
funding her addiction,
00:14:02
Barfield began to
forge her mother's signature on loan applications. And by late 1974,
she'd successfully
00:14:09
racked up $2000 worth of debt
in the name of Lily Bullard. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Her
mother is a perfect mark.
00:14:17
She can take out a
loan on something that her mother owns, whether
it's a house or a car.
00:14:23
And she wants to
cover up the stealing to sustain the drug addiction. You have a woman literally
in a spiral of addiction.
00:14:32
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Then, suddenly out of the blue, something
a bit strange happened.
00:14:36
Barfield's mother receives
a letter saying that she has a car loan that is overdue.
00:14:42
And the car is going to
be repossessed if she doesn't pay the loan off. And she thinks, well,
this is nonsense.
00:14:48
It's surely some
kind of admin error. I haven't taken out a car loan. GEOFFREY WANSELL: When her
mother discovers or gets
00:14:57
letters saying
that she owes money or that they're going
to reclaim the house or they're going
to reclaim the car,
00:15:03
Velma is determined that should
never come to the surface. NARRATOR: Soon after
the letter arrived,
00:15:08
Lily Bullard fell ill once more. But this time, she
wouldn't recover. She again becomes very
ill with similar symptoms to
00:15:18
the ones that she had before. GEOFFREY WANSELL: She
complains of terrible problems,
00:15:22
awful pain, terrible diarrhea. She's in a terrible state. She's taken to hospital and dies
on the 30th of December 1974.
00:15:34
NARRATOR: Lily
Bullard officially died of a heart attack. But in truth, she'd
become the second victim
00:15:41
of Velma Barfield. The 40-year-old
prescription drug addict had poisoned her second husband,
Jennings Barfield, with arsenic
00:15:50
in 1971. And now, she'd done the
same to her own mother. But nobody had any idea.
00:15:58
STUART HAMILTON: What's really
interesting about the arsenic is that while it's
an effective poison,
00:16:06
it's something most people
think only really exists in old Agatha Christie novels.
00:16:11
It's not something that's
at the forefront of the average pathologist's mind. NARRATOR: Barfield continued to
fund her addiction with crime.
00:16:19
After five checks forged in her
dead husband's name bounced, she attempted to
take her own life.
00:16:26
But she was unsuccessful. And investigators soon
caught up with her. Barfield goes to prison.
00:16:33
She's sentenced to six months
for a series of bad checks. But she doesn't serve that
full six-month sentence.
00:16:40
She's released after three on
the grounds of good behavior. NARRATOR: In November 1975,
Barfield was out of prison
00:16:52
and had found a new
career for herself. She was hired as a
live-in caretaker for
00:16:57
93-year-old Montgomery Edwards. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Montgomery was very disabled.
00:17:02
Indeed, he was bedridden. He had sight problems. He was a diabetic. He was an amputee.
00:17:08
His wife, Dolly, was
slightly more mobile. But they needed
help nonetheless. So Barfield takes on a
job looking after them.
00:17:16
She essentially moves in. She gets involved in their care. NARRATOR: In January 1977,
Montgomery Edwards passed away.
00:17:26
But Barfield continued to live
in the house with Montgomery's 85-year-old wife, Dolly.
00:17:33
Dolly was somebody who
was quite meticulous. And she wanted a good service
from Barfield for the money
00:17:39
that she was paying her. And she picks up on the fact
that Barfield could sometimes
00:17:44
be a bit lazy, a bit sloppy. And Dolly was quite
a direct person. And she would tell
Barfield about this.
00:17:50
And Barfield did not
like this whatsoever because this compromised
her feelings of control
00:17:56
within this household. GEOFFREY WANSELL: So in the
end, Dolly, for the same reason
00:18:01
as her mother, has got to go. Otherwise, she may well
blow the whistle on Velma.
00:18:07
NARRATOR: Be it for money
or just out of spite, Barfield began to poison
Dolly in February 1977.
00:18:14
When Dolly became
incredibly unwell with vomiting and diarrhea,
she told her stepson,
00:18:21
I think it's the flu. And she did look
like she had flu. She was very weak. She was very pale.
00:18:27
But Barfield was quite keen
to go to the hospital with her when she was admitted, Barfield
is a constant presence here.
00:18:34
Whenever she seems to be
around, Dolly's health seems to decline. And that's no coincidence.
00:18:41
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Once again,
she's a lady in her 80s. She's just lost her husband.
00:18:46
Well, doesn't look
unnatural to anyone. And the fact that the single
thread through all these deaths
00:18:51
is Velma Barfield is,
well, coincidence. In fact, Velma Barfield
has murdered Dolly Edwards.
00:19:01
Once again, Velma Barfield
has taken the ultimate action of killing someone
who might just
00:19:08
reveal her own difficulties. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Barfield preys on the weak and the old and the innocent.
00:19:16
And this tells me that
she is a predator. She looks out for
people's vulnerabilities.
00:19:21
And she exploits them. She lives a very parasitic
kind of lifestyle. So she will take what
she wants from people.
00:19:29
And then she will move on. And it takes a
certain kind of person to be able to do this
time and time again.
00:19:34
It takes somebody with
no compassion, somebody with no empathy,
somebody who is only
00:19:39
looking out for themselves. NARRATOR: Once again,
Velma Barfield's crimes went undetected.
00:19:46
She'd now claimed three victims. And people were none the wiser. Just a month after the
death of Dolly Edwards,
00:19:53
Barfield found another
couple to live with and care for, John and Record Lee. They reached quite a nice,
amicable arrangement, whereby
00:20:04
Barfield would have time off
on particular days of the week so she could go to church and
she could engage in the things
00:20:10
that she wanted to do because
she very much came across as this nice Christian woman.
00:20:15
NARRATOR: Just days after moving
in with the elderly couple, Barfield forged a check for $50.
00:20:23
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: It's
this mysterious check that emerges that apparently
Record has signed.
00:20:27
And she has no recollection of
signing this check whatsoever. So her husband John
calls the police in.
00:20:34
But the case doesn't go
anywhere because they don't know anybody
who could possibly
00:20:39
have done this to them. And the last suspect on the list
is this good Christian woman
00:20:43
who's come to care for them. NARRATOR: By embezzling
such small amounts, Barfield was able to keep
her thefts under the radar.
00:20:53
DENNIS PATTERSON: It was just
a few dollars here and there. And when they went
back and checked,
00:20:56
they came across
$100, $200 checks that had been written
that obviously hadn't been signed by the person.
00:21:06
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: She's
taking little bits because that gives her a little kick.
00:21:10
It makes her feel that
she's the one that's in control in these households. And that control is something
that she's become addicted to.
00:21:17
So she's not going to
just take a load of money and then disappear because
then her control and her power
00:21:22
is gone. And that is something
that she's addicted to at this point in time. NARRATOR: Concern that
the Lees were onto her,
00:21:30
Barfield dealt
with the situation just as she'd done previously. She began to poison
80-year-old John.
00:21:39
GEOFFREY WANSELL: That same way
of thinking is in Velma's mind. These two are in
danger of revealing me
00:21:46
for what I truly am. And so John Henry Lee, I'm
afraid, she decides has to die. NARRATOR: In an attempt
to cover up her crimes,
00:21:56
Velma Barfield had once
again taken a life. But official record
stated that John
00:22:02
Lee had died of a heart attack. It's so calculating,
so scheming, so ruthless that it almost takes
my breath away.
00:22:13
She doesn't hesitate
for a moment. And yet, there's still
this cycle, this spiral
00:22:20
going on in her life. She's still grappling
with her own demons. And yet, she chooses
to solve the demons
00:22:27
by killing, not by admitting
it, not by saying anything to anyone, but just sustaining
this corrupt agonizing
00:22:36
lifestyle by her actions. NARRATOR: Barfield was stuck in
a vicious circle of addiction,
00:22:43
theft, and murder. And she was getting
away with it. By October 1977, she'd
killed four people.
00:22:50
But her next potential victim
would be a step too far. Velma Barfield's life of
crime was about to be exposed.
00:23:02
By the autumn of
1977, Velma Barfield had killed four
people, including her own mother, in an attempt to
cover up her fraudulent crimes.
00:23:12
The 44-year-old was
addicted to painkillers. And theft was the only
way to pay for her habit.
00:23:19
In October, Barfield
began dating a man named Stuart Taylor. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When we look
at Stuart Taylor's background,
00:23:29
he'd had quite a turbulent time. So his first wife had died. He'd been married another
couple of times after that.
00:23:36
And those relationships
hadn't worked out. I think this was
a guy who wanted that long-term, committed,
stable relationship.
00:23:44
And I think Barfield
really sensed that in him. And she saw here
another vulnerability
00:23:51
that she could prey on. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
Velma decides that this is the perfect
relationship for her.
00:23:57
Yet again, a mark, someone
to be taken advantage of, someone who can look after
her while she sustains
00:24:05
this outrageous but secret life
of drug addiction and stealing. NARRATOR: 56-year-old Stuart had
no idea he was getting involved
00:24:18
with an active serial killer. From all accounts,
Stuart Taylor was a very kind, nice, genuine man.
00:24:25
But he got together
with Barfield. And her version of
the relationship would be very different indeed.
00:24:32
She was a magnet for drama. And when that drama wasn't
present, she would create it.
00:24:39
NARRATOR: Nothing
could have been more dramatic than
Barfield's plot to make Stuart Taylor fall for her.
00:24:45
She staged an attack on herself. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
Police are called. A man's broken in.
00:24:50
She's tied up. She's been attacked. And of course, Stuart
Taylor, not realizing that this is an incredible piece
of manipulation, falls for it
00:25:00
and says, oh, well, I
want to protect you. You can come and live
with me in my house.
00:25:05
NARRATOR: It wouldn't
take long before Barfield was up to her old tricks again. In November 1977,
she began forging
00:25:14
checks in Stuart Taylor's name. Barfield writes some checks
from Stewart's account.
00:25:20
And they're for quite
small sums of money. She uses one to pay a bill. She uses another one for
some prescription drugs.
00:25:28
And she's taking this
money because she feels entitled to it. She feels that she has this
man under her control now.
00:25:35
And this is a pattern that
we've seen before with her. She will just take what
she feels is owed to her.
00:25:40
NARRATOR: This time, however,
Barfield was caught in the act. DENNIS PATTERSON: He were
to come across this check
00:25:47
that he knew he didn't write and
with his forged signature to it and had told her it
better not happen again
00:25:55
or he would turn
her into the police. You know, he wasn't
going to have her stealing money from him.
00:25:59
NARRATOR: Sensing
the game might be up, instead of walking away
from Stuart Taylor,
00:26:05
Barfield instead decided
he had to be silenced. And so in February 1978, she
starts to poison Stuart Taylor.
00:26:16
She uses arsenic and rat poison. Taylor starts complaining of all
kinds of pain and difficulty.
00:26:25
And he's not an old man. He's not like John Henry Lee. He's comparatively young.
00:26:30
He's not even 60. NARRATOR: Just as
she'd done before, Barfield began lacing Stuart's
food with a deadly poison.
00:26:43
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Poisoning requires close access to your victims. It requires you to be in
a relationship with them.
00:26:50
It requires that
regular contact. But it's also quite a
remote form of murder. So it's not one that
involves a huge amount
00:26:58
of physical violence. And women, on the whole, are
generally weaker than men. So it is quite an
advantageous method
00:27:05
for a female multiple murderer. NARRATOR: In February
1978, Stuart Taylor and Velma Barfield
attended a gospel meeting.
00:27:15
But the 45-year-old's
intentions were far from holy. When they get to the
event, Stuart starts
00:27:21
feeling incredibly unwell. He's got terrible stomach pains. He starts feeling
really nauseous.
00:27:28
So what happens then
is that Barfield has to drive them home in the car. And the whole time, Stuart is
becoming increasingly unwell.
00:27:37
And when they get home,
one of Stuart's friends actually calls for an
ambulance because they're so
00:27:43
concerned at how unwell he is. And he goes to hospital. But unfortunately, he
dies not long afterwards.
00:27:50
NARRATOR: Just like
Barfield's other victims, there was no obvious
sign of foul play.
00:27:55
But unlike the others,
Stuart Taylor was just 56 years old when he died. It was thought that
it was likely he'd
00:28:04
died of gastroenteritis. But alarm bells
do ring this time because he's a young person.
00:28:10
You don't expect a
young man to succumb to that sort of
problem in the way that somebody who's older, with
other health problems, might.
00:28:19
NARRATOR: Doctors
ask Stuart's family if they'd like an autopsy
to find out the underlying
00:28:24
reason for his death. They all agreed it was
a good idea, including his partner, Velma Barfield.
00:28:32
And this would
appear to be a really bizarre thing to say because
clearly she knows how he died.
00:28:37
But her performance as
the grieving girlfriend is the most important thing
to her at this point in time.
00:28:44
She has to maintain this facade. So if she was the
one saying, no, I think an autopsy is a bad idea,
that would raise suspicion.
00:28:52
So while she's
going along with it, there is still the
chance that she could get away with his murder.
00:28:57
GEOFFREY WANSELL: I think that
Velma believed that she could probably tough it out,
that she could probably
00:29:02
say, fine, conduct an autopsy. I'm perfectly innocent. NARRATOR: While
the family awaited
00:29:09
the results of the autopsy,
the funeral for Stuart Taylor took place. And front and center was
his grieving partner.
00:29:19
They treated her very much
as another family member, a grieving family member
over the death to the point
00:29:26
that at the funeral,
the family invited Velma to ride in the family
car to the gravesite.
00:29:34
She seems to be at the
heart of this family. And that's where she
wants to be because that's
00:29:39
where she's in control. That's when she's
finding out information that the family might know
about him, about his death.
00:29:46
And it is that need
for power, that need to be dominant, that
need to be right in the middle
00:29:51
of everything. I think the worst thing that she
could do at this point in time is to distance herself
from this family
00:29:56
because then that cuts
off her knowledge. That cuts off her information. And that is what
she's thriving on.
00:30:03
DENNIS PATTERSON: I never could
quite get my mind around that as a reporter
because that, to me,
00:30:07
is the sort of thing
that's awfully cold, to be able to sit with people
and grieve with people when you
00:30:13
know in the back of
your mind that you're the reason they're grieving. I'm not sure I could do that.
00:30:19
NARRATOR: On the
6th of March 1978, the pathologist who carried out
the autopsy on Stuart Taylor
00:30:26
revealed his findings. The autopsy
reveals that Stuart Taylor has been given arsenic.
00:30:35
And attention turns, for
the first time in this case, to Velma Barfield. I talked to people who
were in the emergency room
00:30:48
when Stuart Taylor died. And the pathologist
I talked to said, this is a particularly painful
and gruesome way to die.
00:30:58
It's not neat, clean poison
where you go to sleep and you just don't
wake up again.
00:31:04
This is eating away
your insides slowly. And nothing you can do about it. And he died screaming
for his life.
00:31:14
NARRATOR: Four days later
on the 10th of March 1978, Velma Barfield was brought in
for questioning by the Robeson
00:31:21
County Sheriff's Department. She would never be free again. Velma is charged with the
murder of Stuart Taylor,
00:31:30
first-degree murder. The evidence is compelling. There's no doubt about it. NARRATOR: Barfield confessed
her crimes to detectives
00:31:39
and was sent off for a
psychiatric evaluation to see if she was
fit to stand trial.
00:31:46
A court order led
to the exhumation of the bodies of John Lee,
Dolly Edwards, and Lily Bullard.
00:31:52
All three were found to
contain traces of arsenic. Arsenic will stay in your
system for a very long time
00:32:00
indeed. It will be incorporated into
hair and nails as they grow. And it won't disappear
until that hair is cut
00:32:09
or that nail is clipped. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
Here is a woman who is, I think, one of
the coldest hearted killers
00:32:18
I've ever really looked at. She has ice in her veins. She is concerned about
no one but herself.
00:32:26
She is fierce and fiercely
protective of herself. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Barfield is one
00:32:33
of these female
multiple murderers who will create a dynamic
of care and of nurturing
00:32:39
and of looking after
people and then will completely destroy that. She will use that
position of trust
00:32:45
to kill people who
are within her care. And the fact that she does
this time and time and time
00:32:50
again shows that she is addicted
to those feelings of power. NARRATOR: The
45-year-old killer didn't
00:32:57
confess to the murder
of her second husband, Jennings Barfield. But after his body was
exhumed in May 1978,
00:33:05
it too indicated that
arsenic was present. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
The facade Barfield
00:33:11
has created for herself is
beginning to fall apart. She is revealed for what
she has always been,
00:33:19
which is a ruthless,
merciless killer. NARRATOR: Psychiatric
evaluations ruled that Barfield
was fit to stand
00:33:28
trial for the first-degree,
premeditated murder of Stuart Taylor. A guilty verdict could
lead to a death sentence.
00:33:37
The tables had turned
for Velma Barfield. Suddenly, it was her life
that was on the line.
00:33:47
In November 1978,
46-year-old Velma Barfield was on trial for the murder
of her partner, Stuart Taylor.
00:33:56
If found guilty,
a death sentence would be a real
possibility, especially considering the
formidable district
00:34:03
attorney she was up against. The fellow who was the
prosecutor, Joe Freeman Britt,
00:34:09
at the time was listed in the
Guinness Book of World Records as the deadliest DA.
00:34:15
He had put more people
in the death chamber than any other prosecutor
in the world at that point.
00:34:22
NARRATOR: Barfield's defense
was somewhat bizarre. Although only on trial for
the murder of Stuart Taylor,
00:34:29
she openly admitted
to killing three other people, John Lee, Dolly
Edwards, and her own mother,
00:34:36
Lily Bullard. Barfield claimed
that all their deaths were an unfortunate accident.
00:34:42
DENNIS PATTERSON: At trial,
she all but confessed on the stand about
how she didn't really
00:34:48
mean to kill these people. She just meant to
make them sick. Well, you know,
that's pretty close.
00:34:55
I don't know how much closer
you could get to saying I did it without saying "I did it."
00:35:02
GEOFFREY WANSELL: I have never
been swayed by that argument and neither was the jury.
00:35:07
She wasn't trying
to make them ill. She was trying to kill them. And she succeeded.
00:35:12
This is the work of a
heartless, wicked woman. NARRATOR: On the 2nd
of December 1978,
00:35:22
Velma Barfield was found guilty
of the murder of Stuart Taylor. She has never been tried
for the murder of her mother
00:35:29
or of the people she
was paid to look after. DENNIS PATTERSON: The guilt
factor for the families
00:35:35
was horrible because they had
gone out and hired this woman. And some of them, I know I
talked to them years later.
00:35:44
And they'd say, if
I had not hired her, I don't know how much longer
my mother might have lived.
00:35:50
And it was just sort
of an unknown for them. And even getting
a conviction, I'm not sure that would have
relieved that kind of guilt.
00:35:58
NARRATOR: The judge
recommended the death sentence for Velma Barfield. And the jury rapidly agreed.
00:36:05
And it took the jury
very little time, a couple of hours if I remember right. They came back and sent
her to the death chamber.
00:36:13
NARRATOR: Capital punishment
had been reintroduced in the US in 1976. Barfield was in line
to be the first woman
00:36:21
to be executed in decades. The woman the press had dubbed
the "Death Row Granny" awaited
00:36:30
her fate at the North
Carolina Correctional Institution for Women
under the watchful eye
00:36:36
of warden Jenny Lancaster. You're responsible for
everything that happens. The buck stops with the warden.
00:36:44
So needless to say, the idea
of even having the possibility of an execution of the
first female inmate
00:36:51
in the United States
in almost 40 years was pretty overwhelming. But it was also unheard of
at that point for any state
00:37:00
in the United States. And that's the position
North Carolina was in. NARRATOR: While on
death row, Barfield
00:37:07
reconnected with
her Christian faith and presented herself
as a model prisoner. During the years that
Barfield is in prison,
00:37:15
she seems to do a complete 180. So she becomes the
prison grandmother. She is the inmate who
others go to for advice.
00:37:24
She mentors the
young women who find themselves in prison with her. So it appears that she's
completely reformed.
00:37:32
GEOFFREY WANSELL: She's been
involved in Christianity throughout her life. But now it serves a
very real purpose.
00:37:40
She wishes to try and convince
the authorities that she should not face the death penalty.
00:37:46
And the way she chooses to do
so is to present herself as, oh, I've discovered my sins.
00:37:52
I am a new woman. And I should not face
the ultimate penalty. DENNIS PATTERSON: I hope
that she indeed had a change
00:38:01
and made a change in her
life and a spiritual change. But any change that
was made in prison
00:38:08
really didn't make up for
what she had done before that. It didn't countermand a
jury who had convicted her
00:38:15
and said this woman
deserves to die. NARRATOR: Due to appeals
and legal wranglings,
00:38:22
execution dates came and passed. Barfield's plight became
infamous across the US.
00:38:28
DENNIS PATTERSON: Here's
a woman and a grandma. And it drew just worldwide,
nationwide attention.
00:38:37
A lot of the bigger
city, urban folks were, of course,
absolutely convinced that her death sentence
would be commuted.
00:38:47
NARRATOR: By 1984,
Barfield's legal team were running out of road. As another proposed date
loomed, the 51-year-old
00:38:56
gave an interview from
Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she'd
been moved to in preparation
00:39:03
for her execution. I'm sorry for the hurt that
I've caused so many people. Today, if it was possible,
I wish that I could take
00:39:20
every bit of hurt on myself. It is enough to send
a shiver down your spine because she presents
as though she's
00:39:30
everybody's favorite Granny. 'Oh, I may have done
dreadful things. But I've seen the
errors of my ways.'
00:39:37
I think Velma told me once
or twice, I don't want to die. But I understand I am guilty.
00:39:45
NARRATOR: By late 1984,
Barfield was out of options. Her execution date was set
for the second of November.
00:39:53
And journalist Dennis
Patterson was in attendance. DENNIS PATTERSON: It is, I
can tell you, a very daunting
00:40:00
feeling to walk
into a room, knowing full well that when you walk
out somebody's going to be dead.
00:40:07
You have to have
a certain mindset and a professional
view of things in order to be able to do that.
00:40:14
It's not your everyday type of
assignment for any reporter. NARRATOR: Behind the scenes,
warden Jenny Lancaster tended
00:40:23
to Barfield's last requests. Dignity is important for
both male and female inmates.
00:40:29
And dignity for her meant-- and I had to get permission
from the very top; some people would laugh--
00:40:36
but she wore her pink pajamas. And she wore a bra. DENNIS PATTERSON:
She had a choice
00:40:41
then in North Carolina
of either cyanide gas or lethal injection. And she chose lethal injection.
00:40:50
And so when we're standing at
the back of the witness room, and all of a sudden the
curtains just pull open.
00:40:58
And she is there on a gurney
with a sheet over her. NARRATOR: Just after
2:00 AM, Velma Barfield
00:41:06
became the first
woman in US history to be executed via
lethal injection. Our rule is there has to
be five straight minutes
00:41:17
uninterrupted of no heartbeat-- five. If it's four minutes
and 55 seconds, you have to start
the count again.
00:41:28
There has to be no
action of the heart for five straight minutes. DENNIS PATTERSON: There
was no reaction or anything
00:41:36
that you could tell. Just her breathing
got slower and slower. The sheet's going up and down.
00:41:43
And then it just stopped. And the color, what
color there was, drained slowly away from
a pinkish to a gray.
00:41:52
JENNIFER LANCASTER:
Once it's a flat line, then the medical professional
says, this is a flat line.
00:41:59
The warden goes around
to the witness room. They pull the curtain
in where the inmate is.
00:42:06
The warden goes around and
says the execution is over. Miss Barfield died at 2:15 AM.
00:42:17
GEOFFREY WANSELL: I can't say
I would shed a single tear for Velma Barfield. I've always been reticent
about the death penalty.
00:42:25
But there is something
about the sheer wickedness of these killings that
literally leaves me speechless.
00:42:33
DENNIS PATTERSON: A person
died because of her actions and died horribly. And she paid the
penalty for that.
00:42:42
And that, to me,
sounds like justice. NARRATOR: Velma Barfield, the
so-called "Death Row Granny,"
00:42:50
had been executed. She was 52 years old. The killer had paid the
ultimate price for her crimes.
00:42:59
GEOFFREY WANSELL: What makes
Velma's crimes all the more chilling is that she
pretended to be a carer
00:43:06
when actually she was a killer. They weren't people
she was looking after. They were her victims.
00:43:12
So here's an individual with
no compassion, with no remorse. And had she not been caught,
more people would have died.
00:43:21
NARRATOR: Barfield
may have played the role of a godly
grandmother behind bars. But she killed at
least five people,
00:43:29
including her own flesh and
blood, to get what she wanted. She was a drug addict who
could have asked for help.
00:43:37
But instead, she decided
to cover up her own sins by eliminating the people
around her, which confirms
00:43:44
Velma Barfield's status
as one of the world's most evil killers. [music playing]