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World's Most Evil Killers S06E08 Velma Barfield
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00:01In February 1978, 56-year-old Stuart Taylor
00:05suffered a slow and painful death.
00:08With the consent of his family and partner,
00:11doctors performed an autopsy
00:13to find out what had led to the sudden downturn in his health.
00:18They decided to do that in that case
00:20simply because of his reaction
00:22and found out that he had been poisoned with arsenic.
00:28Stuart had been targeted by his partner,
00:3145-year-old grandmother Velma Barfield.
00:35The kindly-looking churchgoer
00:37had been leading a secret double life,
00:40funding a drug addiction
00:42by stealing from others before killing them.
00:46Barfield is a chameleon.
00:48She simply blends in to her surroundings,
00:51so much so that nobody ever suspects
00:54that she's defrauding the people that she's caring for.
00:58She is this good Christian woman,
01:00and nobody would ever think that she's capable
01:02of the things that are going on.
01:04The murder of Stuart Taylor
01:06would expose Barfield's life of crime.
01:09She had poisoned and killed five people,
01:12including her own mother.
01:14This is a serial killer who knows no bounds
01:17and also is perfectly happy
01:20to do whatever it needs
01:22to sustain the image
01:24that she wants to project of herself.
01:26Velma Barfield had been unmasked
01:29as one of the world's most evil killers.
01:53In November 1984,
01:5652-year-old Velma Barfield
01:59was executed via lethal injection
02:01in Raleigh, North Carolina.
02:04Years earlier, the so-called Death Row Granny
02:07had confessed to killing four people,
02:10but evidence linked her to at least five,
02:13one of whom was her own mother.
02:18Journalist Dennis Patterson visited the killer
02:21while she awaited her fate on Death Row.
02:26When you sat down to talk to her,
02:28she was very quiet and very soft-spoken
02:31and very sincere,
02:34and you could almost believe
02:35she was a victim of something.
02:39She would talk about being ready to meet God
02:42and that she had tried to help others,
02:44and I believed her.
02:46You know, it wasn't a question
02:47of whether I thought she was not telling the truth.
02:50It's just it didn't make up for the crime.
02:54Dennis went on to witness Barfield's execution firsthand.
02:59He'd followed the story since her arrest
03:01for the murder of her partner, Stuart Taylor, in 1978.
03:06Barfield had poisoned him slowly.
03:10How do you make their cereal in the morning
03:12and put in the cereal and the milk and the rat poison
03:15and then sit there across the table from them
03:18and eat your cereal and watch them eat theirs?
03:21And it not guilt you right to the limit
03:24that you're watching yourself kill somebody.
03:29I can't get my mind around that.
03:36This killer story begins in Cumberland County, North Carolina.
03:42Margie Velma Bullard was born on the 29th of October, 1932.
03:48The eldest girl in a family of nine children,
03:51life was difficult from the outset.
03:55Barfield's childhood was peppered with tragedy.
03:58Some of her siblings died in infancy.
04:00Another sibling was quite disfigured because of polio.
04:04So all of these things will have had an impact on her.
04:08This was not the idyllic American childhood.
04:12These were the years after the Great Depression.
04:14The family were literally dirt poor.
04:17The house had no electric heating, no hot water.
04:21It was a really tough existence.
04:25She felt a sense of shame
04:27because her family weren't very well-to-do.
04:29The children at school would make fun of her clothes
04:32and the kind of foods that she took him to eat for lunch.
04:35I think that shame cemented itself,
04:37and I think it impacted on the woman she'd become.
04:42Growing up, Barfield tried to avoid being on the wrong side
04:46of her hot-tempered father,
04:48whom she feared throughout her young life.
04:52Looking at Barfield's parents,
04:55her father was very dominant, very patriarchal,
04:58and her mother was incredibly submissive.
05:01So she comes from this very traditional setup.
05:04And when we look at her father's behavior,
05:06he seems to be quite abusive
05:08in terms of the control that he has over the family unit.
05:13And Barfield's mother feels like
05:15she's constantly treading on eggshells the whole time,
05:18trying not to upset her husband.
05:20And Barfield becomes quite frustrated at her mother
05:23when she sees how submissive she's being
05:26and that she's not standing up for herself.
05:29I think she thought her mother should have done better,
05:33that she should have fought back,
05:35protected her children more
05:37against this violent man with a bad temper
05:40who did what he wanted.
05:43Barfield found Church to be a refuge
05:45from her wretched home life.
05:47And in 1948, the 16-year-old found
05:51another possible escape route
05:53from her tyrannical father.
05:56Barfield meets Thomas Burke
05:58as part of the baseball games
06:00that her father used to organize.
06:02He was involved in these too.
06:04And when Barfield's father finds out
06:07that she has this relationship with Thomas Burke,
06:10he wants to put a stop to it.
06:12He doesn't want her dating before she's 16 years old.
06:16But Barfield is absolutely determined.
06:18And when she's 17,
06:20she does start dating him again.
06:22But there are some strict conditions on it.
06:25She's always got to go out
06:26and double date with another couple.
06:28She's always got to be home by 10 p.m.
06:30So even though she's getting what she wants,
06:33there are still those restrictions on her.
06:35And I think that is part of what fuels her
06:38to want to get married so young.
06:40She wants out of this family unit.
06:42And she thinks that marriage
06:44is the pathway to independence.
06:47The two teenagers eloped in December 1949
06:51and went on to have two children together.
06:54But married life was far from ideal for Barfield.
06:58Her husband was a drinker,
07:00which went against her Christian beliefs.
07:02And in April 1969, tragedy struck.
07:08According to the legend,
07:10as dead drunk, fallen asleep on the sofa,
07:14and a cigarette has fallen onto the floor.
07:18Velma is out.
07:19The children are out at school.
07:21The house burns down.
07:24And Thomas Burke loses his life in the fire.
07:30As the 1960s became the 1970s,
07:34Velma Barfield was widowed
07:36and hiding a growing addiction.
07:38Back in 1962,
07:41a hysterectomy had left her in constant pain
07:44and suffering from depression.
07:46What actually happens then
07:48is that her imbalance in personality
07:53seizes on prescription medicine
07:56as a way of easing the pain.
07:59And she goes from doctor to doctor
08:01to get different drugs at different times
08:03so that she can increase her own use.
08:07So rather than become an alcoholic,
08:09she becomes effectively a drug addict.
08:13I think for the first time in her life,
08:15she's found something that numbs her,
08:18that kind of takes away the pain and the depression
08:21and all of those issues
08:22over which she has no control.
08:24So I think this is a problem
08:26which is just going to escalate.
08:29It's only going to get worse.
08:33Less than 10 years after losing her first husband,
08:37Velma Barfield's life had spiraled out of control.
08:40By March 1978,
08:42she was working as a carer
08:44in Lumberton, North Carolina,
08:46and had begun to fund her painkiller addiction
08:49by stealing from the people
08:51she was meant to be protecting.
08:53And Barfield was hiding an even bigger secret.
08:57I was covering, if I remember correctly,
08:59a meeting, government meeting,
09:01in the courthouse in Robeson County,
09:02and a law enforcement fellow that I knew
09:05passed me in the hallway
09:06and asked if I had checked the arrest sheets.
09:09That evening, I said, no, I had a...
09:11He said, well, you might want to go by and check.
09:14And, of course, for a reporter,
09:15that's always a sign that you ought to do
09:17what somebody suggests you do.
09:20So I went by and checked,
09:22and sure enough, going down through the sheet,
09:24and here is this older woman
09:27who's been charged with first-degree murder.
09:32A post-mortem on 56-year-old Stuart Taylor
09:36revealed that his body had been riddled with arsenic.
09:40Investigators believed he'd been poisoned
09:42by his partner, Velma Barfield.
09:45The investigation was very high-profile.
09:49It was just so unusual.
09:51Having a woman with a sterling reputation
09:54who worked for elderly patients,
09:57who was a regular churchgoer,
09:59wouldn't even work on the evenings or days
10:01that church was going on
10:03because of her religious beliefs,
10:05it was just a very unusual case.
10:08A deeper delve into Barfield's backstory
10:11suggested that maybe Stuart Taylor
10:13wasn't her only victim.
10:16So I started getting calls from people saying,
10:18she's been associated with a number of deaths
10:21that are sort of unusual.
10:23I know one fellow had said she had at least one,
10:25two husbands that died under unusual circumstances.
10:29Her mother had passed away sort of unexpectedly.
10:33As the rumor mill continued to turn,
10:36Barfield had more secrets to reveal to detectives.
10:39After she's charged,
10:42Velma surprises the authorities
10:44by confessing to three other killings,
10:46her mother,
10:48Dolly Edwards,
10:50and John Henry Lee.
10:52And that sort of just cemented it
10:55to the investigators that,
10:57yeah, we're dealing with somebody here
10:59who's, this is not a one-off,
11:02you know, a personal situation.
11:04This is, this is a practice
11:06that's been going on.
11:10Velma Barfield's confessions
11:12had stunned detectives.
11:13She had admitted to killing her mother,
11:16her partner,
11:17and two of the vulnerable people
11:19she was meant to be looking after.
11:21Investigators were only just beginning
11:23to scratch the surface
11:25on the deathly past of the 45-year-old.
11:28A life of fraud, lies, and murder.
11:39In March 1978,
11:4245-year-old Velma Barfield
11:45was charged with the murder
11:46of her partner, Stuart Taylor.
11:48But her life of crime
11:50had begun eight years previously.
11:53In August 1970,
11:56she married the man
11:57whose name she would take on
11:59in the future,
12:00Jennings Barfield.
12:01Jennings suffered from emphysema
12:03and diabetes,
12:04and his new wife
12:06effectively became his carer, too.
12:11During her marriage
12:12to Jennings Barfield,
12:13it could best be described
12:14as a tempestuous relationship.
12:16She was still overdosing on drugs.
12:19He would take her to hospital.
12:20They were going to divorce.
12:21And then, how convenient, he dies.
12:25In April 1971,
12:28after less than a year
12:29of marriage to his wife,
12:3154-year-old Jennings Barfield
12:33developed a sudden illness
12:35and died.
12:37No-one pays very much attention.
12:39He had been ill for a long time.
12:41It was obviously natural causes.
12:43And Velma is just now a widow.
12:46In fact, now, twice widowed.
12:49Later that same year,
12:5039-year-old Velma Barfield's
12:53prescription drug addiction
12:54was reeling out of control.
12:56She lost her job,
12:58her home,
12:59and not long after,
13:01the man who'd made her childhood
13:02so traumatic.
13:04Her father, Murphy,
13:06dies of lung cancer
13:07in 1972.
13:10And before long, Velma moves back in with her mother, Lily.
13:15They have a very competitive relationship, to put it politely.
13:19Barfield always had a very antagonistic relationship with her mother, Lily,
13:24because she felt that she was put upon.
13:26She felt that Lily was making demands of her,
13:29that she should be running around for her, doing chores, looking after her.
13:33And there's a particular period of time in 1974
13:37where that had indeed been going on.
13:41And it's at this time that Lily becomes quite ill.
13:44She develops really bad stomach cramps.
13:47She's vomiting.
13:48She has diarrhea.
13:50She's very, very unwell indeed.
13:52And Barfield takes her to hospital.
13:54And she spends a few days in hospital,
13:56and then she's discharged.
13:58And that seems to be the end of the matter.
14:02As a way of funding her addiction,
14:04Barfield began to forge her mother's signature on loan applications.
14:08And by late 1974,
14:11she'd successfully racked up $2,000 worth of debt
14:14in the name of Lily Bullard.
14:17Her mother is a perfect mark.
14:19She can take out a loan on something that her mother owns,
14:23whether it's a house or a car.
14:25And she wants to cover up the stealing to sustain the drug addiction.
14:30You have a woman literally in a spiral of addiction.
14:35Then, suddenly, out of the blue, something a bit strange happened.
14:39Barfield's mother receives a letter
14:41saying that she has a car loan that is overdue
14:44and the car is going to be repossessed if she doesn't pay the loan off.
14:48And she thinks, well, this is nonsense.
14:50It's surely some kind of admin error.
14:53I haven't taken out a car loan.
14:55When her mother discovers or gets letters
14:59saying that she owes money
15:02or that they're going to reclaim the house
15:04or they're going to reclaim the car,
15:05Velma is determined that should never come to the surface.
15:08Soon after the letter arrived,
15:11Lily Bullard fell ill once more.
15:14But this time, she wouldn't recover.
15:17She again becomes very ill
15:19with similar symptoms to the ones that she had before.
15:22She complains of terrible problems, awful pain, terrible diarrhea.
15:27She's in a terrible state.
15:29She was taken to hospital and dies on the 30th of December, 1974.
15:36Lily Bullard officially died of a heart attack.
15:40But in truth, she'd become the second victim of Velma Barfield.
15:45The 40-year-old prescription drug addict
15:48had poisoned her second husband, Jennings Barfield,
15:51with arsenic in 1971.
15:54And now she'd done the same to her own mother.
15:57But nobody had any idea.
16:00What's really interesting about the arsenic
16:04is that while it's an effect of poison,
16:08it's something most people think only really exists
16:11in old Agatha Christie novels.
16:13It's not something that's at the forefront
16:15of the average pathologist's mind.
16:18Barfield continued to fund her addiction with crime.
16:22After five checks forged in her dead husband's name bounced,
16:25she attempted to take her own life.
16:28But she was unsuccessful,
16:30and investigators soon caught up with her.
16:34Barfield goes to prison.
16:36She's sentenced to six months for a series of bad checks.
16:40But she doesn't serve that full six-month sentence.
16:43She's released after three on the grounds of good behavior.
16:49In November 1975, Barfield was out of prison
16:54and had found a new career for herself.
16:57She was hired as a live-in caretaker
16:59for 93-year-old Montgomery Edwards.
17:03Montgomery was very disabled indeed.
17:05He was bedridden. He had sight problems.
17:08He was a diabetic. He was an amputee.
17:10His wife, Dolly, was slightly more mobile,
17:13but they needed help nonetheless.
17:15So Barfield takes on a job looking after them.
17:18She essentially moves in.
17:20She gets involved in their care.
17:22In January 1977, Montgomery Edwards passed away,
17:28but Barfield continued to live in the house
17:31with Montgomery's 85-year-old wife, Dolly.
17:35Dolly was somebody who was quite meticulous,
17:38and she wanted a good service from Barfield
17:41for the money that she was paying her.
17:43And she picked up on the fact that Barfield
17:45could sometimes be a bit lazy, a bit sloppy.
17:48And Dolly was quite a direct person,
17:50and she would tell Barfield about this,
17:53and Barfield did not like this whatsoever
17:55because this compromised her feelings of control
17:58within this household.
18:00So in the end, Dolly, for the same reason as her mother,
18:04has got to go.
18:05Otherwise, she may well blow the whistle on Velma.
18:09Be it for money or just out of spite,
18:11Barfield began to poison Dolly in February 1977.
18:16When Dolly became incredibly unwell
18:19with vomiting and diarrhea,
18:21she told her stepson,
18:23I think it's the flu,
18:24and she did look like she had flu.
18:26She was very weak.
18:27She was very pale.
18:29But Barfield was quite keen to go to the hospital with her
18:32when she was admitted.
18:34Barfield is a constant presence here.
18:37Whenever she seems to be around,
18:39Dolly's health seems to decline,
18:40and that's no coincidence.
18:43Once again, she's a lady in her 80s.
18:46She's just lost her husband.
18:48Well, doesn't look unnatural to anyone.
18:50And the fact that the single thread
18:52through all these deaths is Velma Barfield
18:55is, well, coincidence.
18:58In fact, Velma Barfield has murdered Dolly Edwards.
19:03Once again, Velma Barfield has taken the ultimate action
19:07of killing someone
19:09who might just reveal her own difficulties.
19:14Barfield preys on the weak and the old and the innocent,
19:18and this tells me that she is a predator.
19:20She looks out for people's vulnerabilities
19:23and she exploits them.
19:25She lives a very parasitic kind of lifestyle,
19:28so she will take what she wants from people
19:31and then she will move on.
19:32And it takes a certain kind of person
19:34to be able to do this time and time again.
19:37It takes somebody with no compassion,
19:38somebody with no empathy,
19:40somebody who is only looking out for themselves.
19:44Once again, Velma Barfield's crimes went undetected.
19:48She'd now claimed three victims
19:50and people were none the wiser.
19:52Just a month after the death of Dolly Edwards,
19:56Barfield found another couple to live with
19:58Anne Carefor, John and Record Lee.
20:02They reached quite a nice, amicable arrangement
20:05whereby Barfield would have time off
20:08on particular days of the week
20:10so she could go to church
20:11and she could engage in the things that she wanted to do
20:14because she very much came across
20:15as this nice Christian woman.
20:18Just days after moving in with the elderly couple,
20:21Barfield forged a check for $50.
20:24There's this mysterious check that emerges
20:27that apparently Record has signed
20:29and she has no recollection of signing this check whatsoever.
20:33So her husband, John, calls the police in
20:36but the case doesn't go anywhere
20:38because they don't know anybody
20:39who could possibly have done this to them.
20:42And the last suspect on the list
20:44is this good Christian woman who's come to care for them.
20:47By embezzling such small amounts,
20:50Barfield was able to keep her thefts under the radar.
20:54It was just a few dollars here and there
20:57and when they went back and checked,
20:58they came across $100, $200 checks
21:03that had been written that obviously hadn't been signed by the person.
21:09She's taking little bits
21:10because that gives her a little kick.
21:12It makes her feel that she's the one that's in control
21:14in these households
21:16and that control is something that she's become addicted to.
21:19So she's not going to just take a load of money
21:21and then disappear
21:22because then her control and her power is gone
21:25and that is something that she's addicted to
21:27at this point in time.
21:30Concerned that the Lees were onto her,
21:32Barfield dealt with the situation
21:34just as she'd done previously.
21:36She began to poison 80-year-old John.
21:41That same way of thinking is in Velma's mind.
21:45These two are in danger of revealing me for what I truly am
21:49and so John Henry Lee, I'm afraid, she decides, has to die.
21:55In an attempt to cover up her crimes,
21:58Velma Barfield had once again taken a life
22:01but official records stated
22:03that John Lee had died of a heart attack.
22:06It's so calculating, so scheming, so ruthless
22:13that it almost takes my breath away.
22:15She doesn't hesitate for a moment
22:18and yet there's still this cycle,
22:21this spiral going on in her life.
22:23She's still grappling with her own demons
22:25and yet she chooses to solve the demons by killing,
22:30not by admitting it,
22:32not by saying anything to anyone
22:33but just sustaining this corrupt, agonising lifestyle
22:38by her actions.
22:41Barfield was stuck in a vicious circle
22:43of addiction, theft and murder
22:46and she was getting away with it.
22:48By October 1977, she'd killed four people
22:52but her next potential victim would be a step too far.
22:58Velma Barfield's life of crime
23:00was about to be exposed.
23:10By the autumn of 1977,
23:14Velma Barfield had killed four people,
23:16including her own mother,
23:18in an attempt to cover up her fraudulent crimes.
23:21The 44-year-old was addicted to painkillers
23:24and theft was the only way to pay for her habit.
23:28In October, Barfield began dating a man named Stuart Taylor.
23:36When we look at Stuart Taylor's background,
23:38he'd had quite a turbulent time.
23:40So his first wife had died,
23:43he'd been married another couple of times after that
23:45and those relationships hadn't worked out.
23:47I think this was a guy who wanted that long-term, committed, stable relationship
23:53and I think Barfield really sensed that in him
23:56and she saw here another vulnerability that she could prey on.
24:01Velma decides that this is the perfect relationship for her.
24:06Yet again, a mark, someone to be taken advantage of,
24:11someone who can look after her while she sustains this outrageous but secret life of drug addiction and stealing.
24:2256-year-old Stuart had no idea he was getting involved with an active serial killer.
24:29From all accounts, Stuart Taylor was a very kind, nice, genuine man,
24:34but he got together with Barfield
24:37and her version of the relationship would be very different indeed.
24:41She was a magnet for drama
24:44and when that drama wasn't present, she would create it.
24:47Nothing could have been more dramatic than Barfield's plot
24:51to make Stuart Taylor fall for her.
24:54She staged an attack on herself.
24:57Police are called, a man's broken in, she's tied up, she's been attacked
25:01and, of course, Stuart Taylor, not realising that this is an incredible piece of manipulation,
25:08falls for it and says,
25:10Oh, well, I want to protect you, you can come and live with me in my house.
25:13It wouldn't take long before Barfield was up to her old tricks again.
25:19In November 1977, she began forging checks in Stuart Taylor's name.
25:26Barfield writes some checks from Stuart's account
25:29and they're for quite small sums of money.
25:31She uses one to pay a bill,
25:33she uses another one for some prescription drugs
25:36and she's taking this money because she feels entitled to it.
25:40She feels that she has this man under her control now
25:44and this is a pattern that we've seen before with her.
25:46She will just take what she feels is owed to her.
25:49This time, however, Barfield was caught in the act.
25:54Stuart had come across this check that he knew he didn't write
25:58and with his forged signature to it
26:00and had told her, better not happen again
26:03or he would turn her in to the police.
26:05You know, he wasn't going to ever steal any money from him.
26:09Sensing the game might be up,
26:11instead of walking away from Stuart Taylor,
26:14Barfield instead decided he had to be silenced.
26:18And so, in February 1978,
26:21she starts to poison Stuart Taylor.
26:25She uses arsenic and rat poison.
26:28Taylor starts complaining of all kinds of pain and difficulty
26:33and he's not an old man, he's not like John Henry Lee.
26:37He's comparatively young, he's not even 60.
26:44Just as she'd done before,
26:47Barfield began lacing Stuart's food with the deadly poison.
26:52Poisoning requires close access to your victims.
26:55It requires you to be in a relationship with them.
26:59It requires that regular contact.
27:00But it's also quite a remote form of murder,
27:04so it's not one that involves a huge amount of physical violence.
27:07And women, on the whole, are generally weaker than men.
27:11So it is quite an advantageous method
27:14for a female multiple murderer.
27:17In February 1978,
27:20Stuart Taylor and Velma Barfield attended a gospel meeting,
27:23but the 45-year-old's intentions were far from holy.
27:27When they get to the event,
27:29Stuart starts feeling incredibly unwell.
27:32He's got terrible stomach pains.
27:34He starts feeling really nauseous.
27:36So what happens then is that Barfield has to drive them home in the car,
27:42and the whole time, Stuart is becoming increasingly unwell.
27:45And when they get home,
27:48one of Stuart's friends actually calls for an ambulance
27:50because they're so concerned at how unwell he is.
27:54And he goes to hospital,
27:55but unfortunately, he dies not long afterwards.
27:58Just like Barfield's other victims,
28:01there was no obvious sign of foul play.
28:04But unlike the others,
28:06Stuart Taylor was just 56 years old when he died.
28:10It was thought that it was likely he'd died of gastroenteritis,
28:14but alarm bells do ring this time because he's a young person.
28:19You don't expect a young man to succumb to that sort of problem
28:23in the way that somebody who's older with other health problems might.
28:27Doctors asked Stuart's family if they'd like an autopsy
28:31to find out the underlying reason for his death.
28:40And this would appear to be a really bizarre thing to say
28:43because clearly she knows how he died.
28:46But her performance as the grieving girlfriend
28:49is the most important thing to her at this point in time.
28:52She has to maintain this facade.
28:54So if she was the one saying,
28:56no, I think an autopsy's a bad idea,
28:59that would raise suspicion.
29:00So while she's going along with it,
29:02there is still the chance that she could get away with his murder.
29:06I think that Velma believed that she could probably tough it out.
29:09That she could probably say,
29:11fine, conduct an autopsy.
29:14I'm perfectly innocent.
29:15While the family awaited the results of the autopsy,
29:19the funeral for Stuart Taylor took place.
29:22And front and centre was his grieving partner.
29:27They treated her very much as another family.
29:30Remember, a grieving family member over the death
29:33to the point that at the funeral,
29:36the family invited Velma to ride in the family car to the gravesite.
29:42She seems to be at the heart of this family.
29:46And that's where she wants to be
29:47because that's where she's in control.
29:49That's when she's finding out information
29:51that the family might know about him, about his death.
29:55And it is that need for power, that need to be dominant,
29:57that need to be right in the middle of everything.
30:00I think the worst thing that she could do at this point in time
30:03is to distance herself from this family.
30:05Because then, that cuts off her knowledge,
30:07that cuts off her information.
30:09And that is what she's thriving on.
30:11I never could quite get my mind around that as a reporter
30:15because that, to me, is the sort of thing that's awfully cold
30:18to be able to sit with people and grieve with people
30:21when you know in the back of your mind
30:23that you're the reason they're grieving.
30:25I'm not sure I could do that.
30:27On the 6th of March, 1978,
30:30the pathologist who carried out the autopsy on Stuart Taylor
30:34revealed his findings.
30:36The autopsy reveals that Stuart Taylor has been given arsenic.
30:43And attention turns, for the first time in this case,
30:47to Velma Barfield.
30:53I talked to people who were in the emergency room
30:56when Stuart Taylor died.
30:58And the pathologist that I talked to said,
31:01this is a particularly painful and gruesome way to die.
31:07It's not neat, clean poison where you go to sleep
31:10and you just don't wake up again.
31:13This is eating away your insides slowly
31:16and nothing you can do about it.
31:18And he died screaming for his life.
31:22Four days later, on the 10th of March, 1978,
31:26Velma Barfield was brought in for questioning
31:29by the Robeson County Sheriff's Department.
31:31She would never be free again.
31:34Velma is charged with the murder of Stuart Taylor.
31:39First degree murder.
31:40The evidence is compelling.
31:42There's no doubt about it.
31:44Barfield confessed her crimes to detectives
31:47and was sent off for a psychiatric evaluation
31:50to see if she was fit to stand trial.
31:53A court order led to the exhumation
31:56of the bodies of John Lee, Dolly Edwards,
31:59and Lily Bullard.
32:01All three were found to contain traces of arsenic.
32:05Arsenic will stain your system for a very long time indeed.
32:10It will be incorporated into hair and nails as they grow
32:13and it won't disappear until that hair is cut or that nail is clipped.
32:20Here is a woman who is, I think, one of the coldest-hearted killers I've ever really looked at.
32:28She has ice in her veins.
32:30She is concerned about no one but herself.
32:34She is fierce and fiercely protective of herself.
32:40Barfield is one of these female multiple murderers
32:43who will create a dynamic of care and of nurturing and of looking after people
32:48and then will completely destroy that.
32:51She will use that position of trust to kill the people who are within her care.
32:56And the fact that she does this time and time and time again
32:58shows that she is addicted to those feelings of power.
33:02The 45-year-old killer didn't confess to the murder of her second husband,
33:08Jennings Barfield, but after his body was exhumed in May 1978,
33:14it too indicated that arsenic was present.
33:17The facade Barfield has created for herself is beginning to fall apart.
33:23She is revealed for what she has always been,
33:27which is a ruthless, merciless killer.
33:32Psychiatric evaluations ruled that Barfield was fit to stand trial
33:37for the first-degree premeditated murder of Stuart Taylor.
33:41A guilty verdict could lead to a death sentence.
33:45The tables had turned for Velma Barfield.
33:48Suddenly, it was her life that was on the line.
34:02In November 1978, 46-year-old Velma Barfield was on trial
34:08for the murder of her partner, Stuart Taylor.
34:11If found guilty, a death sentence would be a real possibility,
34:15especially considering the formidable district attorney
34:19she was up against.
34:21The fellow who was the prosecutor, Joe Freeman Britt, at the time,
34:25was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the deadliest DA.
34:30He had put more people in the death chamber
34:33than any other prosecutor in the world at that point.
34:38Barfield's defense was somewhat bizarre.
34:40Although only on trial for the murder of Stuart Taylor,
34:44she openly admitted to killing three other people,
34:48John Lee, Dolly Edwards, and her own mother, Lily Bullard.
34:52Barfield claimed that all their deaths were an unfortunate accident.
34:57At trial, she all but confessed on the stand
35:02about how she didn't really mean to kill these people.
35:05She was meant to make them sick.
35:07Well, you know, that's pretty close.
35:10I don't know how much closer you could get to saying,
35:13I did it, without saying, I did it.
35:16I have never been swayed by that argument,
35:19and neither was the jury.
35:22She wasn't trying to make them ill.
35:24She was trying to kill them, and she succeeded.
35:27This is the work of a heartless, wicked woman.
35:33On the 2nd of December, 1978,
35:37Velma Barfield was found guilty of the murder of Stuart Taylor.
35:41She has never been tried for the murder of her mother
35:44or of the people she was paid to look after.
35:48The guilt factor for the families was horrible
35:52because they had gone out and hired this woman.
35:55And some of them I know, I talked to them years later,
35:58and they'd say, if I had not hired her,
36:01I don't know how much longer my mother might have lived.
36:05And it was just sort of an unknown for that.
36:07And even getting a conviction,
36:09I'm not sure that would have relieved that kind of guilt.
36:13The judge recommended the death sentence for Velma Barfield,
36:17and the jury rapidly agreed.
36:20And it took the jury very little time,
36:23a couple of hours, if I remember right.
36:24They came back and sent her to the death chamber.
36:28Capital punishment had been reintroduced in the U.S. in 1976.
36:34Barfield was in line to be the first woman
36:36to be executed in decades.
36:41The woman the press had dubbed the death row granny
36:44awaited her fate at the North Carolina
36:47Correctional Institution for Women
36:49under the watchful eye of warden Jenny Lancaster.
36:54You're responsible for everything that happens.
36:57A buck stops with a warden.
36:59So needless to say, the idea of even having the possibility
37:03of an execution of the first female inmate in the United States
37:08in almost 40 years was pretty overwhelming.
37:11But it was also unheard of at that point
37:14for any state in the United States.
37:17And that's the position North Carolina was in.
37:19While on death row,
37:21Barfield reconnected with her Christian faith
37:24and presented herself as a model prisoner.
37:28During the years that Barfield is in prison,
37:31she seems to do a complete 180.
37:33So she becomes the prison grandmother.
37:36She is the inmate who others go to for advice.
37:39She mentors the young women
37:41who find themselves in prison with her.
37:43So it appears that she's completely reformed.
37:47She's been involved in Christianity throughout her life.
37:50But now it serves a very real purpose.
37:55She wishes to try and convince the authorities
37:57that she should not face the death penalty.
38:01And the way she chooses to do so
38:03is to present herself as,
38:05oh, I've discovered my sins.
38:06I am a new woman.
38:08And I should not face the ultimate penalty.
38:13I hope that she indeed had a change
38:16and made a change in her life and a spiritual change.
38:19But any change that was made in prison
38:22really didn't make up for what she had done before that.
38:27It didn't countermand a jury who had convicted her
38:30and said, this woman deserves to die.
38:33Due to appeals and legal wranglings,
38:37execution dates came and passed.
38:40Barfield's plight became infamous across the U.S.
38:44Here's a woman and a grandma.
38:46And it drew just worldwide, nationwide attention.
38:53A lot of the bigger city urban folks
38:56were, of course, absolutely convinced
38:58that her death sentence would be committed.
39:02By 1984, Barfield's legal team were running out of road.
39:07As another proposed date loomed,
39:10the 51-year-old gave an interview
39:12from Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina,
39:15where she'd been moved to
39:17in preparation for her execution.
39:21I'm sorry for the hurt that I've caused so many people.
39:29Today, if it were possible,
39:33I wish that I could take every bit of hurt on myself.
39:39It is enough to send a shiver down your spine
39:42because she presents as though
39:44she's everybody's favorite granny.
39:47Oh, I may have done dreadful things,
39:50but I've seen the errors of my ways.
39:52I think Belma told me once or twice,
39:54I don't want to die, but I understand.
39:58I am guilty.
40:00By late 1984, Barfield was out of options.
40:04Her execution date was set for the 2nd of November,
40:08and journalist Dennis Patterson was in attendance.
40:12It is, I can tell you, a very daunting feeling
40:16to walk into a room knowing full well
40:19that when you walk out, somebody's going to be dead.
40:22You have to have a certain mindset
40:24and a professional view of things
40:27in order to be able to do that.
40:29It's not your everyday type of assignment for any reporter.
40:34Behind the scenes, warden Jenny Lancaster
40:37tended to Barfield's last requests.
40:40Dignity is important for both male and female inmates,
40:44and dignity for her meant,
40:46and I had to get permission from the very top,
40:49some people laughed,
40:51but she wore her pink pajamas and she wore a bra.
40:55She had a choice then in North Carolina
40:58of either cyanide gas or lethal injection,
41:02and she chose lethal injection.
41:05And so when we're standing at the back of the witness room,
41:09and all of a sudden the curtains just pull open,
41:13and she is there on a gurney with a sheet over her.
41:18Just after 2 a.m., Velma Barfield
41:21became the first woman in U.S. history
41:24to be executed via lethal injection.
41:28Our rule is there has to be five straight minutes
41:32uninterrupted of no heartbeat.
41:36Five.
41:37If it's four minutes and 55 seconds,
41:40you have to start the count again.
41:43There has to be no action of the heart
41:45for five straight minutes.
41:47There was no reaction or anything that you could tell.
41:52Just our breathing got slower and slower,
41:56and the sheets going up and down slowly,
41:58and then it just stopped.
41:59And the color, what color there was,
42:02drained slowly away from a pinkish to a gray.
42:07Once it's a flat line,
42:09then the medical professional says,
42:12this is a flat line.
42:14The warden goes around to the witness room.
42:17They pull the curtain where the inmate is.
42:20The warden goes around and says,
42:23the execution is over.
42:25Ms. Barfield died at 2.15 a.m.
42:32I can't say I would shed a single tear
42:34for Velma Barfield.
42:36I've always been reticent about the death penalty,
42:39but there is something about the sheer wickedness
42:42of these killings
42:44that literally leaves me speechless.
42:47A person died because of her actions
42:51and died horribly,
42:53and she paid the penalty for that,
42:57and that, to me, sounds like justice.
43:01Velma Barfield,
43:02the so-called death row granny,
43:05had been executed.
43:06She was 52 years old.
43:08The killer had paid the ultimate price
43:11for her crimes.
43:14What makes Velma's crimes all the more chilling
43:18is that she pretended to be a carer
43:20when actually she was a killer.
43:23They weren't people she was looking after.
43:25They were her victims.
43:27So here's an individual with no compassion,
43:29with no remorse,
43:31and had she not been caught,
43:33more people would have died.
43:36Barfield may have played the role
43:38of a godly grandmother behind bars,
43:41but she killed at least five people,
43:43including her own flesh and blood,
43:46to get what she wanted.
43:48She was a drug addict
43:50who could have asked for help,
43:51but instead she decided to cover up her own sins
43:55by eliminating the people around her,
43:58which confirms Velma Barfield's status
44:01as one of the world's most evil killers.
44:04.
44:06.
44:06.
44:08.
44:33Transcription by CastingWords