Death Row Granny Velma Barfield: America’s First Woman Executed by Lethal Injection

You know, isolation from everybody that I had been with for almost 6 years. The first week I was here was the worst week that I have spent  The last 12 years was just like that. Uh years of a drug nightmare. Days of not knowing where you are or what you’ve done.  Her attorney Velma Barfield was convicted and sentenced to die in 1978 for the poisoning death of her boyfriend.

 She also admitted poisoning three other people including her mother. Barfield had been awaiting her sentence in the women’s correctional facility in Raleigh, but last week for security reasons say corrections officials, she was moved to Raleigh’s Central Prison where she is the only woman prisoner. She now awaits in virtual isolation in a cell just across from the execution chamber.

 A constant reminder she says of her likely fate.  2:00 in the morning, November 2nd, 1984. Central Prison, Raleigh, North Carolina. The corridor is silent. A 52-year-old grandmother walks slowly toward the execution chamber. No struggle, no tears, no last-minute plea. She is wearing pink cotton pajamas, her own choice. She had picked them out herself.

Guards escort her to the gurney. She lies down. She lets them strap her in. Before the injection begins, she speaks her final words. 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 has been supporting me all these 6 years. Then silence.

 15 minutes later, Margie Velma Barfield was dead. The first woman executed in the United States in 22 years, and the first woman in American history to be put to death by lethal injection. The press called her Death Row Granny, but here is what the cameras never showed you. For nearly a decade, this quiet, church-going grandmother had been poisoning the people who trusted her most. Six people.

 And every single time, she walked away clean. How? That is exactly what we are about to find out. Welcome to the channel. If you are new here, hit subscribe and turn on notifications. Stay with us because the story of how Velma Barfield ended up on that gurney is one you will not forget. Before we talk about the crime, you need to know the man at the center of it.

 His name was Roland Stewart Taylor. Stewart was a tobacco farmer from Robeson County, North Carolina. A quiet man. A private man. The kind of man who showed up, did his work, and kept to himself. People who knew him described him the same way. Steady, generous, and trusting. He was a widower in his late 50s. He was not looking for trouble.

 He was not looking for drama. He was just living his life. In 1977, Stewart began dating Velma Barfield. She eventually moved into his home. To the people around them, neighbors, church acquaintances, they looked like a perfectly ordinary couple. Nothing stood out. Nothing raised concern. But, there was one detail nobody knew at the time.

Stewart Taylor was a relative of Dolly Edwards. A woman Velma had already poisoned months earlier. He had no idea. Nobody told him. Nobody connected those dots. Stewart had no criminal record, no enemies, no reason in the world for anyone to want him gone. Then one day, he started noticing money disappearing from his bank account.

Small amounts at first, then more. Court records show Velma had been forging checks on his account to buy prescription drugs. Stewart started asking questions. He never got the chance to finish asking them. To understand what Velma Barfield became, you have to understand where she started.

 She was born Margie Velma Bullard on October 29th, 1932 on a small tobacco and cotton farm in rural South Carolina. She was one of nine children. The family had very little money. What they did have was strict religion and hard discipline. Her father beat her regularly. Her mother never stepped in. Velma later said she grew up in constant fear inside her own home.

 So, at 17, she did the only thing she could think of. She dropped out of school and married her boyfriend Thomas Burke. She was not running towards something. She was running away. To everyone on the outside, Velma looked like exactly what she appeared to be, a devoted wife, a hard-working mother of two, and a faithful church-going woman. There were no public outbursts, no visible warning signs, nothing that would make a neighbor stop and look twice.

 Then, in the mid-1960s, everything began to shift. Thomas Burke was involved in a serious car accident. The injuries left him in chronic pain, and he turned to alcohol to cope. Around the same time, Velma had a hysterectomy and developed severe back pain. Her doctors prescribed Valium, Librium, and other heavy sedatives.

 She took them as directed. Then she needed more. Then she could not stop. The addiction took hold quietly, completely. When her prescriptions ran out, she started forging checks to buy more drugs. In 1975, she was convicted of seven counts of check fraud and served roughly 3 months in prison. Then came two deaths that at the time nobody connected.

 In 1969, her husband Thomas Burke died in a house fire while Velma and their children were away. Authorities ruled it an accident. No autopsy was performed. The following year, Velma remarried a widower named Jennings Barfield. Within a year of their wedding, Jennings was dead. Doctors ruled it heart failure.

 Again, no autopsy. Two husbands, two deaths, no investigations. Nobody asked questions. Nobody looked closer. And Velma Barfield remained, in everyone’s eyes, exactly what she had always appeared to be, a grieving woman who had simply known too much loss. After Velma was released from prison in 1975, she needed work.

 She found it in the most unexpected place, caring for the elderly. It seemed like a natural fit. She was a middle-aged Christian woman with a gentle manner and a helpful spirit. Who would question that? She moved into people’s homes. She handled their medicine. She prepared their food. She managed their daily lives. Nobody thought twice about it.

 Her first assignment was an elderly couple in Lumberton, North Carolina, Montgomery and Dolly Edwards. Montgomery was 94 years old and already in declining health. When he died on January 29th, 1977, nobody was alarmed. He was 94. Doctors attributed it to age. No autopsy was performed, but then Dolly got sick.

 Dolly Edwards had been in reasonably good health until she wasn’t. Suddenly, she developed violent stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. She was hospitalized. Her condition got worse, not better. On March 1st, 1977, Dolly Edwards was dead. Doctors found no clear explanation. No autopsy was ordered. Court records would later confirm that Velma confessed to poisoning Dolly with arsenic.

 Velma was then reassigned to a second household, this time to care for Record Lee, who had broken her leg. Record’s husband, John Henry Lee, was elderly but not critically ill. Not until Velma arrived. On June 4th, 1977, John Henry Lee died after several days of racking stomach and chest pain, vomiting and diarrhea, the exact same symptoms as Dolly Edwards.

 His doctors called it a severe stomach virus. No further questions were asked. Velma later confessed to his murder as well. Look at the pattern. Every single time the victim developed the same brutal symptoms. Every single time, Velma was the one in the house, cooking the meals, handling the medication, playing the role of the caring nurse.

Every single time, doctors saw one isolated case and moved on. Nobody was comparing notes. Nobody was looking at the bigger picture. By this point, counting Thomas Burke, Jennings Barfield, and her own mother, at least six people connected to Velma Barfield were dead. Every single death had been ruled natural causes, and Velma Barfield was still a free woman.

Here is something that makes this case even more disturbing. Velma Barfield worked alone. No accomplice, no partner, no one helping her plan anything. Everything she did, she did entirely by herself, quietly, methodically, and without drawing a single moment of suspicion. Her weapon of choice was arsenic-based rat poison.

 It was commercially available. It was inexpensive, and it was virtually odorless. You could mix it into food or a drink, and the person consuming it would never know. Court records confirm that is exactly what she did. She mixed it into the food and beverages of her victims, drinks they accepted willingly, handed to them by someone they had every reason to trust.

 The reason the method worked so consistently comes down to one fact. Arsenic poisoning looks almost identical to a severe gastrointestinal illness, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramping, weakness. In elderly patients, those symptoms are easily written off as a stomach virus, a heart complication, or simply the body giving out with age. There was no struggle, no visible wound, no obvious crime scene.

 All it required was proximity and access. And as a living caregiver, Velma always had both. She stayed at every bedside. She spoke to every doctor. She wept at every funeral. Her reputation as a devoted Christian woman made her appear not just innocent, but saintly. Nobody looked at the person handing them the cup. If this case already has you gripping your screen, you are not alone.

 Hit that like button, share this video with someone who loves true crime, and stay with us because the moment everything finally collapsed for Velma Barfield is coming up right now. By late January 1978, Velma Barfield and Stewart Taylor had been living together for months. From the outside, everything looked normal.

 A quiet couple, a simple life, nothing to suggest that anything was wrong. But behind closed doors, Velma had a problem. Court records show she had been forging checks on Stewart’s bank account for months, withdrawing money without his knowledge to fund her prescription drug dependency. And Stewart had started to notice, small amounts that did not add up, money he could not account for.

Something was not right and he was beginning to figure out what. Velma did not sit him down and explain. She did not pack her bags and leave. She did not come clean. Instead, she went to the store, purchased arsenic-based rat poison, and brought it home. Shortly after, Stewart began feeling ill. It started with stomach pain, then nausea, then vomiting.

 The symptoms came on gradually at first, the kind of thing a person might dismiss as a bad meal or a passing bug, but they did not pass. They got worse. Day by day, Stewart Taylor was deteriorating and Velma stayed right by his side. She was attentive, concerned. She brought him beer and tea to help settle his stomach.

 She checked on him. She comforted him. Stewart had absolutely no reason to doubt her. She was his partner. She was the woman living in his home. She was the one taking care of him. What he did not know was that every drink she handed him contained arsenic. She was not nursing him back to health. She was finishing what she had started.

 On February 1st, 1978, Stewart’s condition had deteriorated so sharply that he was rushed to the hospital. Velma went with him. She spoke to the doctors. She sat in the waiting room. She held the appearance of a woman absolutely terrified of losing the man she loved. Hospital staff had no reason to look at her twice.

 Two days later, on February 3rd, 1978, Stewart Taylor was dead. He was in his late 50s. He had no serious preexisting illness. There was no visible wound, no sign of struggle, just a man who had gotten sick and never recovered. It had worked before. Every single time, it had worked. But this time, Stewart’s family refused to accept the explanation.

 They were not satisfied with a quiet burial and a vague cause of death. They demanded an autopsy. Medical examiners complied. When the results came back, there was no ambiguity. Lethal levels of arsenic were found in Stewart Taylor’s system. He had not died of a stomach virus. He had not died of heart failure.

 He had been deliberately poisoned. Investigators began closing in on Velma almost immediately. But before they could formally move against her, the phone at the police station rang. On the other end was Velma’s own sister, crying, barely able to speak, telling investigators that Velma had poisoned Stewart Taylor. And then she said something that stopped everyone cold.

She told them this was not the first time. The woman who had fooled doctors, families, and an entire community for nearly a decade was finally exposed. Not by science, not by surveillance, but by her own blood. Stewart Taylor was dead and Velma Barfield did not miss a beat.

 In the days that followed, she did exactly what she had always done. She attended to the funeral arrangements. She spoke with family members. She presented herself as a woman crushed by grief, the devoted partner who had lost someone she loved. There was no visible panic, no sudden disappearance, no dramatic change in behavior. She was composed, cooperative, and heartbroken.

At least that is what she wanted everyone to see. But court records tell a different story entirely. Velma had been systematically forging checks on Stewart’s bank account in the months leading up to his death. This was not about collecting life insurance. It was not about inheritance. Every single forged check, every stolen amount, every fraudulent transaction led back to one thing, buying prescription drugs.

 Stuart Taylor did not die because of what he had. He died because of what he was about to find out. Meanwhile, his family was already asking uncomfortable questions. His sudden illness, his rapid decline, and his death did not sit right with them. They were the ones who demanded the autopsy. They were the ones who refused to let it go.

 That decision, that one act of refusing to accept a quiet burial, was the single moment that ended Velma Barfield’s decade of escaping justice. The autopsy results changed everything. The moment forensic examiners confirmed arsenic poisoning in Stuart Taylor’s system, investigators in Robeson County, North Carolina, opened a formal homicide investigation.

 And from the very first day, one name sat at the center of it. Velma Barfield. She had lived with Stuart. She had controlled his food and his drinks. She had a clear financial motive. The forged checks on his account were already on record. Every line of evidence pointed directly at her. But here is what made this case unusual. Velma had no alibi to challenge because she had never tried to be anywhere else.

She had been present the entire time. That was the point. Her role as a caregiver made her constant presence not suspicious, but completely expected. She had hidden in plain sight. When investigators reviewed the timeline of Stuart’s illness, something else stood out. During the days he was deteriorating at home, Velma had made no calls to report anything unusual, no calls to his doctor, no calls to his family.

 And court records show she was still forging checks on his account even as he lay dying. When detectives sat across from her in an interview, she was calm, not nervous, not tearful, calm. Then came the phone call that tore the case wide open. Velma’s own sister called investigators crying, shaking, and began naming names.

 Not just Stuart Taylor, she mentioned other victims. The Edwards household, the Lee household, Velma’s own mother. Investigators were no longer looking at a single poisoning. They were looking at a pattern that stretched back nearly a decade. And somehow, until that phone call, nobody had seen it. Armed with the autopsy results and the testimony from Velma’s own sister, police brought Velma Barfield in for questioning.

 She did not immediately ask for a lawyer. She did not deny everything and walk out. She sat down across from investigators and she talked. In that interrogation room, Velma confessed. She admitted to poisoning Stuart Taylor. She admitted to poisoning her own mother, Lillian Bullard. She admitted to poisoning Dolly Edwards.

 She admitted to poisoning John Henry Lee. Four separate murders, four separate confessions, and every single time her reason was the same. She had been stealing money and forging checks to buy prescription drugs and she was terrified each victim was about to find out. She killed to keep her secret, but there were two deaths she refused to own.

 Velma would not admit to killing her first husband, Thomas Burke, who died in the 1969 house fire. And she would not admit to killing her second husband, Jennings Barfield. Investigators were not finished. They ordered the exhumation of Jennings Barfield’s body. When forensic analysis came back, it found traces of arsenic in his remains. Velma still denied it.

 By the time investigators laid everything out, the evidence formed one clear, undeniable picture. The arsenic in Stuart Taylor’s autopsy, the four confessions, the arsenic in Jennings Barfield’s exhumed remains, the financial records showing a consistent pattern of forgery tied to each victim. Same woman, same method, same cover story every single time.

 Velma Barfield had confessed to four murders, but she would only be tried for one. Prosecutors made a deliberate decision. The case of Stuart Taylor had everything they needed. A confirmed arsenic autopsy, documented financial forgeries, and a full confession. It was clean. It was airtight. They did not need the others.

 The trial took place in Robeson County, North Carolina in December 1978. Prosecutors laid out the case with precision. Arsenic in the body, forged checks on the account, Velma living in the home, controlling every meal and every drink. Access, motive, and opportunity all pointing to the same person. The defense did not dispute the facts.

 Instead, they asked the jury to consider Velma’s prescription drug addiction as context. Not a justification, but a factor that had driven her to a desperate and destructive place. The jury was not moved. Then came the moment that stopped the courtroom. Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis, a psychiatrist and recognized authority on violent behavior, took the stand.

 She testified that Velma suffered from dissociative identity disorder. She claimed she had personally spoken to an alternate personality living inside Velma, a male identity named Billy, who told her that he, not Velma, had committed the murders. Billy claimed Velma had been a victim of childhood abuse, and that he had emerged to protect her. The judge listened.

 Then he responded with a line that has followed this case ever since. One of them did it. I don’t care which one. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, first-degree murder. They identified three aggravating circumstances. The murder was committed for financial gain. It was committed to obstruct justice. And it was especially heinous and cruel.

The sentence was death. Over the next 6 years, Velma’s attorneys fought that sentence through eight courts and in front of more than 20 judges. Every single appeal was denied. Velma Barfield was sent to Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina. At the time, the state had no designated death row unit for women.

 She was placed in a high-security block alongside escape-prone and severely ill inmates. She was the only woman on death row in the entire state of North Carolina. And then, something happened that divided public opinion straight down the middle. Velma became a born-again Christian. Not quietly, visibly, publicly. She led Bible study sessions. She counseled fellow inmates.

She wrote letters of encouragement to people inside and outside the prison walls. By every outward measure, she appeared to be a completely transformed woman. Even Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth, took notice. They praised her publicly and threw their support behind efforts to have her sentence commuted to life in prison.

 Supporters across the country wrote letters, signed petitions, and made phone calls on her behalf. But Velma’s fight for clemency ran directly into a political wall. Governor Jim Hunt was locked in one of the most closely watched United States Senate races in the country, running against Jesse Helms.

 Granting clemency to a convicted serial poisoner was not a risk he was willing to take. On September 27th, 1984, Hunt formally denied her request, citing justice, the need for deterrence, and the slow agonizing nature of death by arsenic poisoning. Every remaining legal appeal was exhausted. Eight courts, more than 20 judges. The answer was always the same.

 Then Velma made a decision that surprised everyone. She told her attorneys to stop fighting. She withdrew all remaining appeals, including a potential final petition to the United States Supreme Court. She said she wanted to die with dignity. On the evening of November 1st, 1984, Velma spent her final hours with her son and daughter.

 They stayed until visiting hours ended. When the time came, they chose not to be among the witnesses to her execution. Prison officials offered her a final meal. She refused it. Instead, she asked for cheese doodles and a soft drink. She chose to wear her own pink cotton pajamas into the execution chamber rather than the standard prison uniform.

 At 2:00 in the morning on November 2nd, 1984, just 3 days after her 52nd birthday, the lethal injection began. At 2:15 in the morning, Margie Velma Barfield was pronounced dead. She had requested that her organs be donated. Her heart could not be restarted and was unable to be transplanted, but her corneas and some of her skin tissue were successfully donated.

 Her body was buried in a small rural North Carolina cemetery beside her first husband, Thomas Burke. A death row unit for women was subsequently established at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for women, a direct result of the gap her case had exposed. Here is what Velma Barfield’s crimes ultimately amounted to. No grand inheritance. No life insurance fortune.

Every single person she poisoned died because she was forging checks and stealing small amounts of money to feed a prescription drug addiction. That was the secret she killed to protect. She never got clean. She never broke free of it. She simply ran out of victims who trusted her before someone finally asked the right questions.

 The families of Stuart Taylor, Dolly Edwards, John Henry Lee, and the others received no formal restitution, no closure ceremony, just the knowledge that the person who took their loved ones had been held accountable and was gone. She said she was sorry, and maybe she meant every word of it. But sorry does not bring back a single one of the people who handed her a cup and trusted her completely.

 What moment in this story hit you the hardest? Drop it in the comments. We read every single one. And if this story stayed with you, hit that subscribe button. New cases drop every week. We will see you in the next one.