Velma Margie Barfield was born on 29th October 1932, and became the first woman to be executed since 1962. Velma’s first encounter with death was when her husband, Thomas Burke, died of smoke inhalation when their house caught fire. Strangely just a few months later, their house caught fire again, this time with a reward of insurance money.In 1970 she remarried a widower, Jennings Barfield. Barely a year later, Jennings died from heart complications, leaving Velma a widow again. Apparently this incident spurred Velma’s addiction to prescribed medicine, resulting in numerous hospital visits.

It is believed that Velma’s first attempt at murder was that of her own mother, Lillian Bullard, in 1974. Lillian suffered from severe diarrhoea, vomiting and nausea, but recovered days later. A few weeks later Velma’s boyfriend was killed in a fatal car accident. At Christmastime Lillian ended up ill again, this time dying. Lillian had been poisoned. In 1976 Velma began working as a carer for the elderly, working with Montgomery and Dollie Edwards. That winter Montgomery fell ill and died. Barely a month later Dollie also fell ill, suffering from similar symptoms to Velma’s mother. She also died. The next year Velma began caring for 76-year-old Record Lee, who has a broken leg. That June her husband began to suffer from symptoms similar to all the others, and he passed away.

Her next victim was Stuart Taylor, her boyfriend and a relative of Dollie Edwards. Velma feared Stuart knew she had been forging cheques on his account, so she mixed an arsenic-based rat poison into his tea and killed him. During the autopsy the poison was found and traced back to Velma. Velma was arrested. Other bodies were exhumed and examined, and similar traces of the poison were found. Velma was executed on 2nd November 1984 at the Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina. She died at precisely 2:15am.