November 24, 2020 • 25 mins
Velma Barfield is probably better known for her execution than for her murders. She became the first woman to be executed in North Carolina after the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. She was also the first woman to die by lethal injection in the United States.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio and
partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Criminalia.
This season, we're exploring the lives and motivations of some
of the most notorious lady poisoners in history. I'm Holly
Fry and I'm Maria Tremarqui. Before we begin, we do
(00:21):
want to make sure everyone is aware upfront that this
is an episode in which there is some discussion about
childhood sexual abuse, including rape and incest, which obviously is
a difficult subject, so we just want to give you
the heads up. So today's episode, we're talking about the
(00:41):
life of Velma Barfield. Velma is probably best known actually
for her execution more than for her murders. She became
the first woman to be executed in North Carolina after
the death penalty was reinstated in nine and she was
also the first woman to die by lethal injection in
the United States. She was born Margie Vilma Bullard on
(01:06):
October two in South Carolina to Lily and Murphy Bullard.
She was the eldest girl in their family and the
second child. Her family was large, they had nine children,
and it's unlikely that in her early years, anyone would
have anticipated her future of infamy. She would grow up
to become known as the death row Granny. She now
(01:28):
awaits in virtual isolation in a cell just across from
the execution chamber. I will hear from the victims families
just as much as those people who won't. Clemit. See,
she may look like a sweet little grandmother, but she
is a cold blooded, deliberate, murderingber Vilma's family lived on
(01:48):
a small tobacco and cotton farm that had no electricity
or running water, or from what we can tell from
the research, any amenities at all. They would lived in
rural South Carolina, NA, and they were a strict Pentecostal
Christian household, and Velma remained a Christian throughout her life,
on and off, but mostly throughout her life. And as
(02:08):
a child, she enjoyed school, and she was said to
get angry when she was kept home to do chores
or work around the farm. But she also pretty quickly
noticed that there was a big class difference between her
and her siblings and their classmates, so she started to
pickpocket money from her father so that she could buy
herself small luxuries to be more like her peers and
(02:30):
kind of fit in a little bit better. Bold from
not having been caught for this behavior, she graduated to
stealing eighty dollars from an elderly neighbor, but that time
she did get caught and her father beat her for it.
So her father was an alcoholic, and he would also
often physically beat her mother, and Velma, it said, feared
(02:51):
him throughout her childhood. When she was thirteen years old,
he raped her on a day she stayed home from
school with the flu. Now, some accounts suggest that this
abuse actually occurred throughout her adolescence, but several of Elma's siblings, however,
dispute the claim that she was an incest victim. When
she was seventeen, Vilma dropped out of school and she
(03:13):
ran away and married her high school boyfriend, Thomas Burke.
They moved together to Parkton, North Carolina, and they went
on to have two children, named Ronnie and Kim. But
about fifteen or so years into their marriage, which there's
really no evidence that they had a good or a
bad marriage, they seemed to be getting along just fine.
On Thomas was in a car accident and he was
(03:34):
injured with a concussion um and He went on to
have chronic severe headaches, and he began drinking heavily in
order to manage his pain. Velma had some jobs on
and off throughout their marriage. When she started working at
a textile plant, she didn't stay very long in that
job because serious medical issues. She ended up having an
(03:56):
emergency hysterect me, something she spoke about as leaving her
feeling very insecure. She started taking Librium and valium. Those
are both benzo diazepines used to treat anxiety, so Vilma
was actually taking about three times as much than what
was prescribed to her, and she began going to multiple
(04:16):
doctors for prescriptions to sustain her newly developed pill addiction.
She at this time was also injured by a hit
and run driver, which led to even more prescriptions and
more doctors and furthered her addictions. A few years after
her husband's accident, while Vilma was out running errands, the
Burke's house caught on fire. Thomas was home at the time,
(04:38):
allegedly passed out drunk with a lit cigarette, and he
ended up dying from smoke in elation. There was no
tako foul play. No one mentioned that Velma, who had
grown weary of her husband's drinking, might have been the
one to leave the unattended lit cigarette in the house.
At least they didn't think about that until decades later,
when she was being investigated for a different murderer. But
(05:01):
we don't want to get ahead of ourselves right now.
A widow, Alma had moved herself and her children back
in with her parents, but they didn't stay very long.
Vilma married again very quickly to a man named Jennings Barfield,
and Jennings was also a fellow widower. We are going
(05:24):
to take a quick break, but when we come back,
we will talk about Vilma's short lived marriage to Jennings Barfield.
(05:44):
Welcome back to Criminaliot. Let's start talking about Vilma's awfu
label use for rat poison. So. Vilma's new husband, Jennings,
became ill one night after he and Vilma got in
an argument. This was just a few months after the
two were married. Velma, at this point was about thirty
nine years old, and she had in fact poisoned Jennings
with arsenic She would later explain that she only meant
(06:07):
to make him sick, but he ended up dying. Before
his death, Jennings had difficulty breathing, was vomiting, and had diarrhea,
and the coroner reported this case as having a heart
attack as the cause of death. Again, Velma and her
children moved back in with her parents. Shortly after they
were settled, her father died um but his cause of death,
(06:29):
I want to be very clear, was lung cancer and
has had nothing to do with Velma and her rat poison.
But Velma was still living in her childhood home and
during that time took out a loan in secret in
her mother's name, and then bought a new bottle of
rat poison out of town in St. Paul, North Carolina.
(06:49):
But if we know anything about buying rat poison from
the stories this season, it's that it is not always
about killing rats. In this case, yes, it was for
her mother. Lily Bullard was sixty four years old when
Velma poisoned her with arsenic As she died, she suffered
those symptoms that we have begun to know so well
on this show, vomiting, abdominal cramping, and diarrhea, and despite
(07:14):
Velma's permission to conduct an autopsy on Lily, a surprising
move for someone who was using poison as a weapon,
authorities didn't find anything improper, so they noted the cause
of death as a heart attack. I was so surprising
to me, one that they didn't find anything, but two
that she said yes to it. I it gives me
questions about what their toxicology standards were and if that
(07:37):
was a normal part of their autopsy proceedings. But me too,
because we've seen it before. Actually, we've seen it several
times where people have ben have been cleared by autopsies
when clearly they have had arsenic in their system. So
I'm a little skeptical about this. But anyway, not long
after her mother's death in Alma was arrested and she
(07:58):
served a few months, about three to six according to
different accounts, But it was not for her new arsenic uses.
It was actually for writing bad checks to maintain her
Benzo's habit, and upon her release, she was hired as
a live in caretaker fore year old Montgomery Edwards. Montgomery
was blind and bedridden and his eighty three year old wife,
(08:21):
Dolly was too feeble to take care of him by herself,
and they all agreed that Velma would be paid seventy
five dollars a week for this job, which also included
room and bore. It wasn't long though, before Velma began
to resent what she later called Dolly's critical nature, which
I have no example of, but just in my imagination,
(08:41):
she began to dislike her, or we could actually take
it as far as develop a strong hatred for as
some accounts of her story tell it, in seven at
the age of Montgomery Edwards, who as we mentioned, had
been a passed away, and it was then that Velma
(09:03):
purchased a new bottle of rat poison and she poisoned Dolly.
So she's no longer at this point living with the
Edwards family, and Vilma was then hired as a living
caretaker by Record late In to care for her husband,
John Henry, who was eighty. Record had broken her leg
(09:24):
and she couldn't care for her husband at least temporarily,
and Velma would stay with them and be paid fifty
dollars a week, and things were going fine, that is
until Velma forged one of John Henry's checks for fifty dollars.
Worried or possibly anxious that he was going to find
out she had done this, she decided that the best
(09:44):
way to solve this potential problem was yes with poison,
and although he died of arsenic poisoning once again, the
coroner reported the cause of death to be a heart attack.
So not long after John Henry's death, Elma they and
dating a man named Roland Stewart Taylor who went by Stewart,
and they quickly moved in together, and then they quickly
(10:06):
became engaged. Stewart was a tobacco farmer, and like Velma,
he was also a widower. And Vilma, you'll recall, was
an addict, something which she continued to need money to sustain,
and so soon she began forging checks on her husband's account,
and afraid of being found out, she also started mixing
arsenic into his beer. So we're starting to develop a
(10:29):
pattern here with Alma and her addictions and her check writing.
One day, while Velma and Stewart were attending a Pentecostal
revival meeting, Stewart began to complain of severe stomach pain
and he quickly became gravely ill, so ill that he
(10:51):
ended up in the hospital where he died after just
a couple of days. And here's where things go a
little bit south for Vilma. When we come back, we
will talk about how an anonymous tip revealed Elma as
a serial poisoner. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's get back
(11:20):
into talking about Stewart's autopsy results. So Stewart died in
the hospital, and there was an autopsy performed on his body,
and they did, in fact find that he had not
died of a heart attack or natural causes. He died
of arsenic poisoning. And it was then that Vilma was
arrested and she was charged with Stewart's murder. An anonymous
(11:45):
tip that was later revealed to be Stewart's sister suggested
that this was not the first time Vilma had poisoned
and that she needed to be stopped. This led authorities
to do some investigating into Vilma's life and whether or
not she played a role in a warts or any
other's deaths. I've been so curious how Stewart's sister would
(12:05):
have known that this wasn't the first time Velma had
used arsenic, but I couldn't find that answer anywhere. Unfortunately,
I guess she's just like, maybe maybe they were friends.
Velma was convicted of one murder, her fiance, Stuart Taylor,
but there were likely others She confessed to three additional
(12:27):
fatal poisonings after she was arrested, including the deaths of
Dolly Edwards, John Henry Lee, and her mother Lily Bullard.
So that's four murders total that she admitted to, and
she was actually suspected of as many as seven killings.
The bodies of her late husband, Thomas Burke and Jennings
Barfield were later exhumed. Both bodies were found to contain
(12:51):
traces of arsenic One interesting thing about her confession is that,
despite the fact that she confessed to those additional three murders,
Velma always denied that she had killed her husband's Another
interesting thing about Velma that we found out during our
time learning about her and those that she murdered is
that she always attended the funerals of her victims, and
(13:14):
those in attendance always reported that she appeared to grieve
genuinely for them. Her defense was that she had murdered
because she had misappropriated money from her victims to support
her prescription pill addiction, but that they were all actually
accidental poisonings. She had just wanted to make people ill.
(13:35):
Her intention, she insisted, was not to kill them, but
just to bide some time until another job came along
and she could repay the money that she owed without
anybody finding out what she had been doing. Psychiatric experts
had been called in as witnesses during her trial, and
they tried to intervene and stop Velma from being sentenced
for six years. Her attorneys filed appeals to overturn her conviction,
(13:59):
are arguing she was quote not guilty by reason of insanity,
but a North Carolina state appeal was denied and the U. S.
Supreme Court refused to hear the case, although not for
lack of trying on behalf of her defense team. In
December of nineteen seventy eight, Velma was convicted of first
degree murder of Stuart Taylor. She was not tried for
(14:20):
the fatal poisonings of her mother, Lily Bullard, or for
Dolly Edwards or John Henry Lee. It took just about
an hour for the trial jury to find and we
quote aggravating circumstances in her case. They recommended a death
sentence for Velma, and it was also reported. So we
(14:41):
have a little bit more information because she's a little
bit more modern, so we get a little bit more
about the trial which I liked, except the jurors didn't
like her manner in the courtroom and said that she
appeared and we quote again cold and sarcastic, and that
she seemed uncaring on the stand. They actually went ahead
and say that she's snarled, and there was reportedly and
(15:03):
this is if you can even imagine a round of
applause given to the district attorney as he made his
closing comments. I know, so weird. And during her time
on death Row, Velma became a born again Christian, and
then she started to minister to fellow inmates as well
as to guards. And it was during this time when
(15:26):
Velma began writing letters to the North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt,
arguing that her recommitment to her Christian faith should be
considered a factor for commuting her sentence from death to
life in prison. And because of her boorn again faith,
Alma found herself with a great amount of support from
many Christians across the United States, including popular evangelists Billy
(15:47):
and Ruth Graham, But Governor Hunt continued to deny Vilma's
requests for clemency, saying that her murders were deliberate and
too serious to warrant commuting her sentence to life in prison,
and ultimately, Hunt was concerned over the possible negative effects
that staying the execution of an infamous killer might have
on his campaign for re election. You see, all of
(16:09):
this was just before election day, but he denied that
politics had anything to do with his decision. For the
execution to move forward was denied by Governor Jim Hunt.
As governor, I have a responsibility to make the right
decision and the interest of justice and the protection of
(16:30):
our people. She received final visits from members of her
family and close friends. One visitor reported Velma said, quote,
when I go into that gas chamber at two, it's
my gateway to heaven. Mamma also issued a brief statement
before her execution, saying, in part, and we quote, I
know that everybody has gone through a lot of pain,
(16:52):
all the families connected, and I am sorry, and I
want to thank everybody who have been supporting me all
these six years. She refused the offers from prison officials
for especially prepared final meal, preferring instead to be served
a Coca cola and a bag of cheese doodles. You
like what you like um For her execution, wardrobe. Velma
(17:16):
chose the comfort of her pink pajamas and blue house slippers.
I've very much like that detail about Valma. So Velma
was executed on November two at the Central Prison in Raleigh,
(17:37):
North Carolina, when she was fifty two years old. She
was pronounced dead at to fifteen am, which was about
fifteen minutes after she had received a legal injection of
muscle relaxed and intended to stop her heart and her breathing.
Demonstrators protested her execution outside the prison, arguing the governor
refused to show mercy and compassion. About three hundred opponents
(18:00):
of capital punishment stood a silent vigil outside the prison
during her execution. About eight people who demonstrated in favor
of capital punishment were also there, and they cheered at
the announcement of her death. But a weird scene to
be in, yes, And this too was something that really
surprised me about Alma. After her execution, her body was
(18:25):
rushed to a medical school in nearby Winston Salem. And
that's because prior to her death, while she was on
death row, she had decided and agreed to be an
organ donor. Ronnie Burke Velma's son from her first marriage,
was quoted shortly after his mother's execution saying that she
had hoped her death would help the families of her
(18:46):
victims put their lives back together. Dalma's story, to me
is a sad story of addiction, and it was really
kind of difficult to research and write about her knowing
that her execution was cheered by some people. Right, Don't
(19:07):
get me wrong. I know that there's a lot of
division about capital punishment out there, but cheered, um, Yeah,
I mean it's this is one of those ones that
is sort of it's not It's definitely not our lightest
or most joyous episode, um, because there are so many
issues in play, right that are difficult and complex and
(19:29):
not really easy to wrap up, right, Like, obviously, this
is a person who whether she truly experienced trauma when
she was young, or she thought she had or made
it up, any of those suggests that you know, she
was someone who probably could have benefited from, um, you know,
(19:53):
some mental health support. Absolutely, and regardless of yes, I said, irregardless,
I just wanted to make you laugh. So I feel
that even if there, even if we hadn't had that
piece of her childhood. If if there had been no
abuse in the house and she was strictly I'm a
(20:15):
pain killer or a Benzo's addict, she also could have
benefited from a lot of work and therapy and help.
And like she said over and over it with all
of these killings, she didn't mean to do actually didn't.
I didn't doubt her defense that she didn't mean to
kill these people. She meant to pay them back, and
she was looking for a way to prolong X, Y,
(20:37):
and Z until she could do that. Unfortunately she chose poison. Yeah,
she was not clear headed. No, once you get into
the whole issue of like what it is to be
in the thrall of chemical addiction, that becomes a whole
other layer to the story, right where absolutely, I mean,
of course you I don't know if sympathy is the
(20:58):
right word, but like, just as a human, I would
hope that you know, you you feel some sense of
of sorrow at what that person must be living through
where they're not really having probably very many moments of clarity. Right,
Everything is a little clouded when everything is driven by addiction. Exactly.
(21:18):
You're not even talking about moments of joy. You're talking
about moments of clarity in life and making poor decisions
because you're at a fog. Yes, yeah, so Velma's Life,
Filma's Life. This one was a little bit um tricky
(21:40):
to come up with a cocktail four, I imagine, So
as I was writing, I was thinking, I wonder if
All is going to use coke. I didn't. So the
cocktail that I came up with is called Pink Pajamas,
just to be a little bit cute, and it's a
(22:00):
choose your own adventure cocktail. Interesting and you have me
intrigued with this cocktail. It's not particularly wild in any way.
It's really just a subout of one ingredient, depending on
whether you want something sweet or something with a little
more kick. So it starts with an Arnold Palmer half
and half sweet iced tea and lemonade, or you can
(22:22):
also buy pre mixed Arnold Palmer. So mine is three
ounces of sweet tea and three ounces of lemonade or
six ounces of Arnold Palmer. And then it's an ounce
and a half of vodka, just a plain vodka. I
didn't do any flavors this time, but the flavor change
happens when you either do one ounce of hybiscus syrup
(22:42):
in it, or one ounce of Habanniro lime syrup. I
have trouble choosing. I have to make one of each.
But the hyperiscus one sounds so delicious to me, very
very pretty, like it's a pretty flavor. The habanero lime
one is actually pretty popular at our house. I think
(23:03):
that that would be delicious. Actually, I bet I would
like that one more. But I'm intrigued by the hybiscus.
I'm not even that much of like a heat person
in terms of food or drink. I just can't tolerate
it um. But it's the sweetness of the tea and
the lemonade make it so that that is not quite
the heat really comes off of it a lot, but
(23:24):
it's just a nice It's great for late summer for me. Yeah,
it's one of those things that in Georgia where I
am right now, if you kind of started in the
late afternoon sitting outside when it's still warm, by the
time the temperature starts to drop, the alcohol has warmed
you up a bit, so it's kind of a perfect
transition beverage for me. So, yes, those are pink pajamas
(23:47):
and I kind of wanted to do, to choose your
own adventure thing. Because at the end, the one thing
that I do love about Velma story is that she
kind of went away. Nobody ever goes in terms of going.
I just want my coke and my cheese goodles, and
I want my comfiest clothes, please, thank you. That was
my favorite part about her is that even on that
she did not come up with like I want filet
mignon and I want a bottle of this, and she
(24:10):
just she just went with what she completely unpretentious. She liked,
give me some tobl Aran whiskey. Well, now we know
what Maria's death row meal is in the blue box.
I'm gonna note this for the future, just in case
you want mine. I want bangers and mathay and a
(24:33):
lot of them. And that is my favorite meal of
all time. What's funny is I always expected that I
would have some sort of potato product, but nope, not
what it comes right down to it tobler own. All right.
So while we ponder these things, pink pajama, yes uh,
(24:54):
in honor of at least making choices when you can
raising a coke to Velm right, or a coke to Velma.
This is another thing too. If you are not a drinker,
you can leave that vodka out and you still have
a really interesting beverage. You can just do like a
hybiscus Arnold Palmer or a Huba neuro line Arnold Palmer,
and they're quite young, which would be lovely. Hopefully you
(25:15):
will try this and enjoy. We sure have enjoyed having
this time with you, and we hope you've enjoyed hearing
Velma's story, even though it's not a super fun one
this time around, no nothing, nothing fun to laugh at,
but is momentous. She was the first of some things. Um.
So we thank you for spending this time with us
and we cannot wait to talk to you about another
(25:37):
lady poison or next week. Criminalia is a production of
Shanda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from Shanda land Audio, please visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio and
partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Criminalia.
This season, we're exploring the lives and motivations of some
of the most notorious lady poisoners in history. I'm Holly
Fry and I'm Maria Tremarqui. Before we begin, we do
(00:21):
want to make sure everyone is aware upfront that this
is an episode in which there is some discussion about
childhood sexual abuse, including rape and incest, which obviously is
a difficult subject, so we just want to give you
the heads up. So today's episode, we're talking about the
(00:41):
life of Velma Barfield. Velma is probably best known actually
for her execution more than for her murders. She became
the first woman to be executed in North Carolina after
the death penalty was reinstated in nine and she was
also the first woman to die by lethal injection in
the United States. She was born Margie Vilma Bullard on
(01:06):
October two in South Carolina to Lily and Murphy Bullard.
She was the eldest girl in their family and the
second child. Her family was large, they had nine children,
and it's unlikely that in her early years, anyone would
have anticipated her future of infamy. She would grow up
to become known as the death row Granny. She now
(01:28):
awaits in virtual isolation in a cell just across from
the execution chamber. I will hear from the victims families
just as much as those people who won't. Clemit. See,
she may look like a sweet little grandmother, but she
is a cold blooded, deliberate, murderingber Vilma's family lived on
(01:48):
a small tobacco and cotton farm that had no electricity
or running water, or from what we can tell from
the research, any amenities at all. They would lived in
rural South Carolina, NA, and they were a strict Pentecostal
Christian household, and Velma remained a Christian throughout her life,
on and off, but mostly throughout her life. And as
(02:08):
a child, she enjoyed school, and she was said to
get angry when she was kept home to do chores
or work around the farm. But she also pretty quickly
noticed that there was a big class difference between her
and her siblings and their classmates, so she started to
pickpocket money from her father so that she could buy
herself small luxuries to be more like her peers and
(02:30):
kind of fit in a little bit better. Bold from
not having been caught for this behavior, she graduated to
stealing eighty dollars from an elderly neighbor, but that time
she did get caught and her father beat her for it.
So her father was an alcoholic, and he would also
often physically beat her mother, and Velma, it said, feared
(02:51):
him throughout her childhood. When she was thirteen years old,
he raped her on a day she stayed home from
school with the flu. Now, some accounts suggest that this
abuse actually occurred throughout her adolescence, but several of Elma's siblings, however,
dispute the claim that she was an incest victim. When
she was seventeen, Vilma dropped out of school and she
(03:13):
ran away and married her high school boyfriend, Thomas Burke.
They moved together to Parkton, North Carolina, and they went
on to have two children, named Ronnie and Kim. But
about fifteen or so years into their marriage, which there's
really no evidence that they had a good or a
bad marriage, they seemed to be getting along just fine.
On Thomas was in a car accident and he was
(03:34):
injured with a concussion um and He went on to
have chronic severe headaches, and he began drinking heavily in
order to manage his pain. Velma had some jobs on
and off throughout their marriage. When she started working at
a textile plant, she didn't stay very long in that
job because serious medical issues. She ended up having an
(03:56):
emergency hysterect me, something she spoke about as leaving her
feeling very insecure. She started taking Librium and valium. Those
are both benzo diazepines used to treat anxiety, so Vilma
was actually taking about three times as much than what
was prescribed to her, and she began going to multiple
(04:16):
doctors for prescriptions to sustain her newly developed pill addiction.
She at this time was also injured by a hit
and run driver, which led to even more prescriptions and
more doctors and furthered her addictions. A few years after
her husband's accident, while Vilma was out running errands, the
Burke's house caught on fire. Thomas was home at the time,
(04:38):
allegedly passed out drunk with a lit cigarette, and he
ended up dying from smoke in elation. There was no
tako foul play. No one mentioned that Velma, who had
grown weary of her husband's drinking, might have been the
one to leave the unattended lit cigarette in the house.
At least they didn't think about that until decades later,
when she was being investigated for a different murderer. But
(05:01):
we don't want to get ahead of ourselves right now.
A widow, Alma had moved herself and her children back
in with her parents, but they didn't stay very long.
Vilma married again very quickly to a man named Jennings Barfield,
and Jennings was also a fellow widower. We are going
(05:24):
to take a quick break, but when we come back,
we will talk about Vilma's short lived marriage to Jennings Barfield.
(05:44):
Welcome back to Criminaliot. Let's start talking about Vilma's awfu
label use for rat poison. So. Vilma's new husband, Jennings,
became ill one night after he and Vilma got in
an argument. This was just a few months after the
two were married. Velma, at this point was about thirty
nine years old, and she had in fact poisoned Jennings
with arsenic She would later explain that she only meant
(06:07):
to make him sick, but he ended up dying. Before
his death, Jennings had difficulty breathing, was vomiting, and had diarrhea,
and the coroner reported this case as having a heart
attack as the cause of death. Again, Velma and her
children moved back in with her parents. Shortly after they
were settled, her father died um but his cause of death,
(06:29):
I want to be very clear, was lung cancer and
has had nothing to do with Velma and her rat poison.
But Velma was still living in her childhood home and
during that time took out a loan in secret in
her mother's name, and then bought a new bottle of
rat poison out of town in St. Paul, North Carolina.
(06:49):
But if we know anything about buying rat poison from
the stories this season, it's that it is not always
about killing rats. In this case, yes, it was for
her mother. Lily Bullard was sixty four years old when
Velma poisoned her with arsenic As she died, she suffered
those symptoms that we have begun to know so well
on this show, vomiting, abdominal cramping, and diarrhea, and despite
(07:14):
Velma's permission to conduct an autopsy on Lily, a surprising
move for someone who was using poison as a weapon,
authorities didn't find anything improper, so they noted the cause
of death as a heart attack. I was so surprising
to me, one that they didn't find anything, but two
that she said yes to it. I it gives me
questions about what their toxicology standards were and if that
(07:37):
was a normal part of their autopsy proceedings. But me too,
because we've seen it before. Actually, we've seen it several
times where people have ben have been cleared by autopsies
when clearly they have had arsenic in their system. So
I'm a little skeptical about this. But anyway, not long
after her mother's death in Alma was arrested and she
(07:58):
served a few months, about three to six according to
different accounts, But it was not for her new arsenic uses.
It was actually for writing bad checks to maintain her
Benzo's habit, and upon her release, she was hired as
a live in caretaker fore year old Montgomery Edwards. Montgomery
was blind and bedridden and his eighty three year old wife,
(08:21):
Dolly was too feeble to take care of him by herself,
and they all agreed that Velma would be paid seventy
five dollars a week for this job, which also included
room and bore. It wasn't long though, before Velma began
to resent what she later called Dolly's critical nature, which
I have no example of, but just in my imagination,
(08:41):
she began to dislike her, or we could actually take
it as far as develop a strong hatred for as
some accounts of her story tell it, in seven at
the age of Montgomery Edwards, who as we mentioned, had
been a passed away, and it was then that Velma
(09:03):
purchased a new bottle of rat poison and she poisoned Dolly.
So she's no longer at this point living with the
Edwards family, and Vilma was then hired as a living
caretaker by Record late In to care for her husband,
John Henry, who was eighty. Record had broken her leg
(09:24):
and she couldn't care for her husband at least temporarily,
and Velma would stay with them and be paid fifty
dollars a week, and things were going fine, that is
until Velma forged one of John Henry's checks for fifty dollars.
Worried or possibly anxious that he was going to find
out she had done this, she decided that the best
(09:44):
way to solve this potential problem was yes with poison,
and although he died of arsenic poisoning once again, the
coroner reported the cause of death to be a heart attack.
So not long after John Henry's death, Elma they and
dating a man named Roland Stewart Taylor who went by Stewart,
and they quickly moved in together, and then they quickly
(10:06):
became engaged. Stewart was a tobacco farmer, and like Velma,
he was also a widower. And Vilma, you'll recall, was
an addict, something which she continued to need money to sustain,
and so soon she began forging checks on her husband's account,
and afraid of being found out, she also started mixing
arsenic into his beer. So we're starting to develop a
(10:29):
pattern here with Alma and her addictions and her check writing.
One day, while Velma and Stewart were attending a Pentecostal
revival meeting, Stewart began to complain of severe stomach pain
and he quickly became gravely ill, so ill that he
(10:51):
ended up in the hospital where he died after just
a couple of days. And here's where things go a
little bit south for Vilma. When we come back, we
will talk about how an anonymous tip revealed Elma as
a serial poisoner. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's get back
(11:20):
into talking about Stewart's autopsy results. So Stewart died in
the hospital, and there was an autopsy performed on his body,
and they did, in fact find that he had not
died of a heart attack or natural causes. He died
of arsenic poisoning. And it was then that Vilma was
arrested and she was charged with Stewart's murder. An anonymous
(11:45):
tip that was later revealed to be Stewart's sister suggested
that this was not the first time Vilma had poisoned
and that she needed to be stopped. This led authorities
to do some investigating into Vilma's life and whether or
not she played a role in a warts or any
other's deaths. I've been so curious how Stewart's sister would
(12:05):
have known that this wasn't the first time Velma had
used arsenic, but I couldn't find that answer anywhere. Unfortunately,
I guess she's just like, maybe maybe they were friends.
Velma was convicted of one murder, her fiance, Stuart Taylor,
but there were likely others She confessed to three additional
(12:27):
fatal poisonings after she was arrested, including the deaths of
Dolly Edwards, John Henry Lee, and her mother Lily Bullard.
So that's four murders total that she admitted to, and
she was actually suspected of as many as seven killings.
The bodies of her late husband, Thomas Burke and Jennings
Barfield were later exhumed. Both bodies were found to contain
(12:51):
traces of arsenic One interesting thing about her confession is that,
despite the fact that she confessed to those additional three murders,
Velma always denied that she had killed her husband's Another
interesting thing about Velma that we found out during our
time learning about her and those that she murdered is
that she always attended the funerals of her victims, and
(13:14):
those in attendance always reported that she appeared to grieve
genuinely for them. Her defense was that she had murdered
because she had misappropriated money from her victims to support
her prescription pill addiction, but that they were all actually
accidental poisonings. She had just wanted to make people ill.
(13:35):
Her intention, she insisted, was not to kill them, but
just to bide some time until another job came along
and she could repay the money that she owed without
anybody finding out what she had been doing. Psychiatric experts
had been called in as witnesses during her trial, and
they tried to intervene and stop Velma from being sentenced
for six years. Her attorneys filed appeals to overturn her conviction,
(13:59):
are arguing she was quote not guilty by reason of insanity,
but a North Carolina state appeal was denied and the U. S.
Supreme Court refused to hear the case, although not for
lack of trying on behalf of her defense team. In
December of nineteen seventy eight, Velma was convicted of first
degree murder of Stuart Taylor. She was not tried for
(14:20):
the fatal poisonings of her mother, Lily Bullard, or for
Dolly Edwards or John Henry Lee. It took just about
an hour for the trial jury to find and we
quote aggravating circumstances in her case. They recommended a death
sentence for Velma, and it was also reported. So we
(14:41):
have a little bit more information because she's a little
bit more modern, so we get a little bit more
about the trial which I liked, except the jurors didn't
like her manner in the courtroom and said that she
appeared and we quote again cold and sarcastic, and that
she seemed uncaring on the stand. They actually went ahead
and say that she's snarled, and there was reportedly and
(15:03):
this is if you can even imagine a round of
applause given to the district attorney as he made his
closing comments. I know, so weird. And during her time
on death Row, Velma became a born again Christian, and
then she started to minister to fellow inmates as well
as to guards. And it was during this time when
(15:26):
Velma began writing letters to the North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt,
arguing that her recommitment to her Christian faith should be
considered a factor for commuting her sentence from death to
life in prison. And because of her boorn again faith,
Alma found herself with a great amount of support from
many Christians across the United States, including popular evangelists Billy
(15:47):
and Ruth Graham, But Governor Hunt continued to deny Vilma's
requests for clemency, saying that her murders were deliberate and
too serious to warrant commuting her sentence to life in prison,
and ultimately, Hunt was concerned over the possible negative effects
that staying the execution of an infamous killer might have
on his campaign for re election. You see, all of
(16:09):
this was just before election day, but he denied that
politics had anything to do with his decision. For the
execution to move forward was denied by Governor Jim Hunt.
As governor, I have a responsibility to make the right
decision and the interest of justice and the protection of
(16:30):
our people. She received final visits from members of her
family and close friends. One visitor reported Velma said, quote,
when I go into that gas chamber at two, it's
my gateway to heaven. Mamma also issued a brief statement
before her execution, saying, in part, and we quote, I
know that everybody has gone through a lot of pain,
(16:52):
all the families connected, and I am sorry, and I
want to thank everybody who have been supporting me all
these six years. She refused the offers from prison officials
for especially prepared final meal, preferring instead to be served
a Coca cola and a bag of cheese doodles. You
like what you like um For her execution, wardrobe. Velma
(17:16):
chose the comfort of her pink pajamas and blue house slippers.
I've very much like that detail about Valma. So Velma
was executed on November two at the Central Prison in Raleigh,
(17:37):
North Carolina, when she was fifty two years old. She
was pronounced dead at to fifteen am, which was about
fifteen minutes after she had received a legal injection of
muscle relaxed and intended to stop her heart and her breathing.
Demonstrators protested her execution outside the prison, arguing the governor
refused to show mercy and compassion. About three hundred opponents
(18:00):
of capital punishment stood a silent vigil outside the prison
during her execution. About eight people who demonstrated in favor
of capital punishment were also there, and they cheered at
the announcement of her death. But a weird scene to
be in, yes, And this too was something that really
surprised me about Alma. After her execution, her body was
(18:25):
rushed to a medical school in nearby Winston Salem. And
that's because prior to her death, while she was on
death row, she had decided and agreed to be an
organ donor. Ronnie Burke Velma's son from her first marriage,
was quoted shortly after his mother's execution saying that she
had hoped her death would help the families of her
(18:46):
victims put their lives back together. Dalma's story, to me
is a sad story of addiction, and it was really
kind of difficult to research and write about her knowing
that her execution was cheered by some people. Right, Don't
(19:07):
get me wrong. I know that there's a lot of
division about capital punishment out there, but cheered, um, Yeah,
I mean it's this is one of those ones that
is sort of it's not It's definitely not our lightest
or most joyous episode, um, because there are so many
issues in play, right that are difficult and complex and
(19:29):
not really easy to wrap up, right, Like, obviously, this
is a person who whether she truly experienced trauma when
she was young, or she thought she had or made
it up, any of those suggests that you know, she
was someone who probably could have benefited from, um, you know,
(19:53):
some mental health support. Absolutely, and regardless of yes, I said, irregardless,
I just wanted to make you laugh. So I feel
that even if there, even if we hadn't had that
piece of her childhood. If if there had been no
abuse in the house and she was strictly I'm a
(20:15):
pain killer or a Benzo's addict, she also could have
benefited from a lot of work and therapy and help.
And like she said over and over it with all
of these killings, she didn't mean to do actually didn't.
I didn't doubt her defense that she didn't mean to
kill these people. She meant to pay them back, and
she was looking for a way to prolong X, Y,
(20:37):
and Z until she could do that. Unfortunately she chose poison. Yeah,
she was not clear headed. No, once you get into
the whole issue of like what it is to be
in the thrall of chemical addiction, that becomes a whole
other layer to the story, right where absolutely, I mean,
of course you I don't know if sympathy is the
(20:58):
right word, but like, just as a human, I would
hope that you know, you you feel some sense of
of sorrow at what that person must be living through
where they're not really having probably very many moments of clarity. Right,
Everything is a little clouded when everything is driven by addiction. Exactly.
(21:18):
You're not even talking about moments of joy. You're talking
about moments of clarity in life and making poor decisions
because you're at a fog. Yes, yeah, so Velma's Life,
Filma's Life. This one was a little bit um tricky
(21:40):
to come up with a cocktail four, I imagine, So
as I was writing, I was thinking, I wonder if
All is going to use coke. I didn't. So the
cocktail that I came up with is called Pink Pajamas,
just to be a little bit cute, and it's a
(22:00):
choose your own adventure cocktail. Interesting and you have me
intrigued with this cocktail. It's not particularly wild in any way.
It's really just a subout of one ingredient, depending on
whether you want something sweet or something with a little
more kick. So it starts with an Arnold Palmer half
and half sweet iced tea and lemonade, or you can
(22:22):
also buy pre mixed Arnold Palmer. So mine is three
ounces of sweet tea and three ounces of lemonade or
six ounces of Arnold Palmer. And then it's an ounce
and a half of vodka, just a plain vodka. I
didn't do any flavors this time, but the flavor change
happens when you either do one ounce of hybiscus syrup
(22:42):
in it, or one ounce of Habanniro lime syrup. I
have trouble choosing. I have to make one of each.
But the hyperiscus one sounds so delicious to me, very
very pretty, like it's a pretty flavor. The habanero lime
one is actually pretty popular at our house. I think
(23:03):
that that would be delicious. Actually, I bet I would
like that one more. But I'm intrigued by the hybiscus.
I'm not even that much of like a heat person
in terms of food or drink. I just can't tolerate
it um. But it's the sweetness of the tea and
the lemonade make it so that that is not quite
the heat really comes off of it a lot, but
(23:24):
it's just a nice It's great for late summer for me. Yeah,
it's one of those things that in Georgia where I
am right now, if you kind of started in the
late afternoon sitting outside when it's still warm, by the
time the temperature starts to drop, the alcohol has warmed
you up a bit, so it's kind of a perfect
transition beverage for me. So, yes, those are pink pajamas
(23:47):
and I kind of wanted to do, to choose your
own adventure thing. Because at the end, the one thing
that I do love about Velma story is that she
kind of went away. Nobody ever goes in terms of going.
I just want my coke and my cheese goodles, and
I want my comfiest clothes, please, thank you. That was
my favorite part about her is that even on that
she did not come up with like I want filet
mignon and I want a bottle of this, and she
(24:10):
just she just went with what she completely unpretentious. She liked,
give me some tobl Aran whiskey. Well, now we know
what Maria's death row meal is in the blue box.
I'm gonna note this for the future, just in case
you want mine. I want bangers and mathay and a
(24:33):
lot of them. And that is my favorite meal of
all time. What's funny is I always expected that I
would have some sort of potato product, but nope, not
what it comes right down to it tobler own. All right.
So while we ponder these things, pink pajama, yes uh,
(24:54):
in honor of at least making choices when you can
raising a coke to Velm right, or a coke to Velma.
This is another thing too. If you are not a drinker,
you can leave that vodka out and you still have
a really interesting beverage. You can just do like a
hybiscus Arnold Palmer or a Huba neuro line Arnold Palmer,
and they're quite young, which would be lovely. Hopefully you
(25:15):
will try this and enjoy. We sure have enjoyed having
this time with you, and we hope you've enjoyed hearing
Velma's story, even though it's not a super fun one
this time around, no nothing, nothing fun to laugh at,
but is momentous. She was the first of some things. Um.
So we thank you for spending this time with us
and we cannot wait to talk to you about another
(25:37):
lady poison or next week. Criminalia is a production of
Shanda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from Shanda land Audio, please visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Maria Trimarchi
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!