Velma Barfield

Velma Barfield was born in rural South Carolina, but was raised near Fayetteville, North Carolina. Barfield's father reportedly was physically abusive and her mother, Lillian Bullard, did not intervene. She escaped by marrying Thomas Burke in 1949. The couple had two children and were reportedly happy until Barfield had a hysterectomy and developed back pain. These events led to a behavioral change in Barfield and an eventual drug addiction.

Burke began to drink and Barfield's complaints turned into bitter arguments. On April 4, 1969, after Burke had passed out, Barfield and the children left the house, and when they returned they found the structure burned and Burke dead. In 1970, Barfield married a widower, Jennings Barfield. Less than a year after their marriage, Jennings died on March 22, 1971 from heart complications.

In 1974, Lillian Bullard, Barfield's mother, showed symptoms of intense diarrhea, vomiting and nausea, only to fully recover a few days later. During the Christmas season of the same year, Bullard experienced the same earlier illness, but died in the hospital a few hours after being admitted on December 30, 1974.

In 1976, Velma Barfield began caring for the elderly, working for Montgomery and Dollie Edwards. Montgomery fell ill and died on January 29, 1977. A little over a month after the death of her husband, Dollie experienced identical symptoms to that of Bullard and died on March 1. Barfield later confessed to the latter death. The following year, Barfield took another caretaker job, this time for 76-year-old Record Lee, who had broken her leg. On June 4, 1977, Lee's husband, John Henry, began experiencing racking pains in his stomach and chest along with vomiting and diarrhea. He died soon afterward and Barfield later confessed to his murder.

Another victim was Rowland Stuart Taylor, Barfield's boyfriend and a relative of Dollie Edwards. Fearing he had discovered she had been forging checks on his account, Barfield mixed an arsenic-based rat poison into his beer and tea. He died on February 3, 1978, while she was trying to "nurse" him back to health; an autopsy found arsenic in Taylor's system. After her arrest, the body of Jennings was exhumed and found to have traces of arsenic, a murder that Barfield denied having committed. Although she subsequently confessed to the murders of Bullard, Dollie, and John Henry Lee, she was tried and convicted only for the murder of Taylor.

After Barfield's appeal was denied in federal court, she instructed her attorneys to abandon a further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Barfield was executed on November 2, 1984 at Central Prison. She released a statement before the execution: "I know that everybody has gone through a lot of pain, all the families connected, and I am sorry, and I want to thank everybody who have been supporting me all these six years." Barfield chose as her last meal 1 bag of Cheetos and two 8-ounce glass bottles of Coca-Cola. Barfield was buried in a small, rural North Carolina cemetery near her first husband, Thomas Burke.