Serial Killer “Death Row Granny” Margie Velma Barfield Execution | Crime, Final Meal & Last Words

After spending six years on death row, Margie Velma Barfield was executed by lethal injection in North Carolina. She was the first woman put to death in the United States in 22 years. The press called her death row granny. But behind the nickname was something far darker. Over a 7-year period, Velma poisoned at least six people.

 her own mother, her husband, her boyfriend, elderly patients she was hired to protect. And every single time, doctors ruled natural causes. Every single time, no autopsy was performed. Every single time, she got away with it. Until she didn’t. This is the story of the woman who killed the people who trusted her most. To understand how Velma became a killer, we need to go back to the night that started it all.

 April 4th, 1969, 37-year-old Velma Burke and her two children left their house in Parkton, North Carolina, after another fight with her 40-year-old husband, Thomas. He had passed out drunk again. It had been another bad night with another argument about his drinking that went nowhere. But when they returned home hours later, the house was engulfed in flames.

Firefighters pulled Thomas’s dead [music] body from the wreckage. Authorities ruled it an accident. Thomas had been drinking heavily, they said. Maybe he fell asleep with a cigarette. Maybe the alcohol made him careless. No one suspected his wife. No one thought Velma could have set that fire deliberately. But years later, investigators would look back at that night and wonder.

Because Thomas was just the first. Just a year after Thomas’s death, Velma remarried. She married a widowerower named Jennings Barfield, a 57-year-old tobacco farmer. To outsiders, he seemed like a stable man who could give Velma the security she needed. But this marriage lasted less than a year. Because on March 22nd, 1971, Jennings died suddenly.

 He had been complaining of nausea and stomach pain for days. After his death, doctors diagnosed it as heart failure brought on by complications from other health issues. He was buried. No autopsy was performed. And again, no one suspected foul play. Velma was a widow. Again, after Jennings’s death, Velma decided to move in with her parents.

 But not long after, her father died of lung cancer, a death Velma had no hand in. But her mother was a different story. In the summer of 1974, Velma’s mother, Lillian Bullard, began showing severe symptoms. Intense diarrhea, vomiting, nausea. She was sick for days, but then she recovered. It seemed like a virus, nothing more.

 But in December of that year, during a Christmas visit, Lillian fell ill again [music] with the same symptoms. But this time it was worse. She was rushed to the hospital where she died on December 30th, 1974. Doctors couldn’t determine the exact cause. They suspected natural causes related to her age, and no autopsy was performed.

 Velma grieved publicly, playing the role of the heartbroken daughter, and no one suspected that she had poisoned her own mother. That made three. By 1976, Velma was 44 years old and working as a caretaker for the elderly. It was a job that gave her access to vulnerable people and to their checkbooks. She took a job caring for Montgomery and Dolly Edwards, an elderly couple in Lumberton, North Carolina.

Montgomery was 94 and already in failing health. On January 29th, 1977, he died. Natural causes, they said. After all, he was 94. But just over a month later, on March 1st, 1977, his wife Dolly died as well. This raised some eyebrows. Dolly had been in good health before Velma started caring for her.

 But suddenly, she fell ill with violent stomach pains, vomiting, and diarrhea. She was hospitalized, but her condition worsened rapidly. She died within days, and no autopsy was performed again. Velma later confessed to poisoning Dolly with arsenic, though she never admitted to killing Montgomery, but at the time, no one suspected her, and she kept working.

 Later that year, she started caring for 76-year-old Record Lee, who had broken her leg. Record lived with her husband, John Henry Lee. He was elderly but in relatively good health until June 4th, 1977 when he died suddenly after days of racking pains in his stomach and chest along with vomiting and diarrhea. The same symptoms, the same pattern that made at least six.

 But what turned Velma Barfield into a serial poisoner? To understand that, we need to go back to where it all began. Velma was born on October 29th, 1932 in rural North Carolina. She grew up in a strict Pentecostal household, one of nine children on a small tobacco farm. Her childhood was brutal. Her father beat her regularly and her mother did nothing to stop it.

 Velma later said she lived in constant fear. At 17, desperate to escape, she dropped out of school and married Thomas Burke. They had two children together. For over 15 years, things seemed normal. But in 1965, Thomas was in a serious car accident. The injuries left him with chronic pain, and he turned to alcohol and pills to cope.

 Around the same time, Velma had a hysterctomy. The surgery left her with debilitating back pain, and doctors prescribed her painkillers and tranquilizers, Valium, Librium, and other sedatives. She became addicted and as her tolerance grew, she needed more and more pills just to function. When the prescriptions ran out, she started forging checks to buy more.

 Addiction didn’t just change Velma, it consumed her. And when people got in the way of her addiction, or when they threatened to expose her forgeries, Velma made them disappear. And then came the victim who would finally expose her. Stuart Taylor was Velma’s boyfriend. He was a kind man, a tobacco farmer in his late 50s, and he trusted her completely.

 They had been dating for about a year, but Velma had been forging checks on his account to feed her drug habit. And when she feared he had discovered what she was doing, she panicked. In late January 1978, Stuart began feeling ill. He complained of stomach pain, nausea, and vomiting, the same symptoms all her other victims had experienced.

Velma stayed by his side, playing the role of the concerned girlfriend, bringing him beer and tea to help settle his stomach. But what Stuart didn’t know was that she was mixing arsenic based rat poison into his drinks. His condition worsened, [music] and on February 1st, 1978, he was admitted to the hospital.

 But by then, the poison had done its work. And just two days later, Stuart Taylor was dead. But this time things were different. His family wanted answers. They requested an autopsy. And when the results came back, they found lethal levels of arsenic in Stuart’s system. He had been poisoned. Police immediately suspected Velma.

 She had been with him when he fell ill. She had been nursing him back to health and she had access to his food and drinks. But before they could arrest her, they received a phone call. It was Velma’s own sister crying. She told them that Velma had poisoned Stuart and that this wasn’t the first time she had done something like this.

 Velma was arrested and brought in for questioning. And in that interrogation room, she confessed. She admitted to poisoning Stuart. She confessed to poisoning her mother. She confessed to poisoning Dolly Edwards and John Henry Lee. And when authorities exumed the body of Jennings Barfield, her second husband, they found arsenic in his remains as well.

 In total, Velma was believed to be responsible for at least six deaths, possibly more, but she was only tried for one, the murder of Stuart Taylor. At her trial in December 1978, Velma was convicted of first-degree murder. The jury found three aggravating circumstances. The murder was committed for financial gain.

 It was committed to hinder law enforcement, and it was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. They recommended death and the judge agreed. But then came a twist no one expected. A psychiatrist named Dr. Dorothy Atnau Lewis, an expert on violent behavior, examined Velma and made an extraordinary claim.

 She said Velma suffered from dissociative identity disorder. And she said she had spoken to an alternate personality living inside Velma. His name was Billy. Billy claimed that he was the one who committed the murders, not Velma. Billy said Velma had been a victim of abuse as a child and that he had emerged to kill her abusers.

 Was it real? Was Velma’s mind truly fractured by years of trauma? Or was this another manipulation from a woman who had fooled everyone her entire life? The judge wasn’t interested in finding out. One of them did it, he said. I don’t care which one. and Velma was sentenced to death. Velma was sent to central prison in Raleigh.

 Because North Carolina had no designated area for women under death sentences, she was housed with escaprone and mentally ill prisoners. She was the only woman on death row in the state. Over the next 6 years, something changed in Velma. Or at least that’s what her supporters claimed. She became a born-again Christian. She taught Bible studies.

 She counseledled other inmates. She wrote letters of encouragement. She even earned praise from evangelist Billy Graham who visited her and became one of her most vocal supporters. Her supporters mounted a massive campaign for clemency. They argued that Velma had changed, that she had found God, that her [music] life should be spared.

But her critics weren’t convinced. This was a woman who had manipulated everyone around her for decades. her husbands, her mother, her patients, her boyfriend. Was this transformation real? Or was Velma Barfield still playing the role she needed to play? On September 27th, 1984, Governor James B.

 Hunt denied her plea for clemency. He cited justice, crime deterrence, and the fact that poisoning is a slow and agonizing method of murder. Her lawyers filed a final series of appeals, but everyone was rejected. Her case had been through the federal court system three times, reviewed by eight courts and 21 judges, and every appeal had been denied.

 By midday on Thursday, November 1st, 1984, Velma told her attorneys to give up the fight. She said she wanted to die with dignity. Velma spent her final afternoon with family and friends. Her son and daughter stayed until visiting hours ended at 5:00 p.m. Velma’s family decided not to be among the 16 witnesses to her death. Then prison officials offered Velma a final meal of chicken livers, macaroni and cheese, greens, [music] and cake. She refused.

 Instead, she requested cheese doodles and a Coca-Cola. Velma asked to donate her organs for transplant. And when the moment came, she chose to wear her pink cotton pajamas to the execution chamber instead of the standard brown prisons dress. At 2 am on Friday, November 2nd, 1984, just 3 days after her 52nd birthday, Velma was led into the execution chamber at Central Prison.

 She walked calmly, wearing her pink pajamas, and laid down on the gurnie as officials strapped her in. Before the injection began, they asked if she had any final words. Velma spoke softly. 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 six years.

Then, as the lethal injection began, Velma closed her eyes. Just 15 minutes later, at 2:15 a.m., she was pronounced dead. Her body was cremated, though her request to donate her organs was only partially fulfilled. Her heart could not be restarted, so it could not be transplanted, but her corneas and some of her skin tissue were donated.

 Margie Velma Barfield was 52 years old. What do you think? Has justice been served? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.