Death Sentence (19 page)

McLeod called in his chief investigator, Hubert Stone, who soon would become sheriff, and Stone summoned his two homicide investigators, Wilbur Lovett and Alf Parnell.

As soon as Britt told the officers about his conversation with Andrews, Lovett brightened. That was the call he’d been waiting for. He already had reason to believe that Stuart Taylor’s death was murder, and he had a suspect as well. Her name was Velma Barfield.

He told about the calls Benson Phillips had received a month earlier. If the caller was right, they didn’t have only one murder. Velma might also have killed her mother and a couple of elderly people for whom she’d worked.

Alf Parnell could not believe the way this was unfolding. Not only had he known Velma Barfield for most of her life, he also knew Stuart Taylor. He’d met him when he was a patrol deputy in St. Pauls, though he had no idea that Velma had become involved with him. He had known all of Velma’s family and her first husband, Thomas Burke, who had died in a fire. He knew, too, that Velma had married again, an older man from Fayetteville he’d never met—he didn’t remember his name, didn’t know what had become of him. But he did know the identity of one of the elderly people for whom Velma had worked. He was John Henry Lee.

Parnell had been the detective who had gone to Lee’s house to investigate a forged check just before his death. He had been surprised to find Velma working there. She had seemed a likely suspect for the forgery, but when he questioned the Lees about her, they wouldn’t hear it. Velma was an upstanding Christian, they said. She would never do something like that.

For his part, Lovett had known the other elderly couple for whom Velma had worked, Montgomery and Dollie Edwards. Montgomery’s son, Preston, Lumberton’s fire chief, was one of his closest friends.

And everybody in the room knew Stuart Taylor’s son-in-law. Bill Storms, the husband of Taylor’s daughter, Alice, worked right there in the courthouse with them. He was the court reporter, a quiet and gentle man liked by all.

Not an hour had passed since Bob Andrews’ call to Britt, and an investigation of Velma Barfield was already under way. Nobody in the room had to be told that this very well might become the biggest murder case that Robeson County had ever seen.

The detectives began with basics, gathering records, collecting the easily available information that would guide them to people who could help their investigation. Parnell even went shopping, searching out places that sold Terro and Singletary’s to see how easily Velma could have obtained it.

By Wednesday, Parnell and Lovett had assembled the death certificates of Stuart Taylor, Lillie Bullard, Dollie and Montgomery Edwards, and John Henry Lee (Jennings Barfield’s identity was not yet known to them), and delivered them to the district attorney.

“We spread them out across the desk,” Britt later recalled, “and it was just like a damn suit of cards: gastroenteritis, gastroenteritis, gastroenteritis…”

“Gentlemen,” said Britt, running a hand through his curly dark hair, “I think we have a serial killer on our hands.”

By this time the detectives knew that Velma had been in prison, that she had a history of writing bad checks (thirty-one charges in two counties going back to 1968), forgery and wrecking cars. They also knew that seven bad check charges were still outstanding against her, that she worked on the third shift at United Care, a local nursing home, and that she lived in the home of an elderly woman on Franklin Street, Mamie Warwick, a woman, they realized, who might be in danger, as perhaps could be the patients in the nursing home. This potential danger lent an urgency to their investigation.

The detectives wanted to pick up Velma and question her, see her reaction when they told her they knew Stuart Taylor had been poisoned. If she was willing to talk, they could at least stake out her position, which could prove helpful later. They might even startle her into a confession, which would make their case much easier. They could bring her in on the ruse of the bad checks, then spring Stuart on her.

Britt thought the plan worth a try.

Velma had passed the bad checks in Lumberton, so Benson Phillips, who had been brought into the investigation because of the calls he’d received about Velma, was sent to bring her in on Friday afternoon.

Later, Velma would say that when Phillips surprised her from sleep that day, she asked for a few minutes to get ready and during that time had downed two Valium, two Tylenol with codeine, a Sinequan and an Elavil, both antidepressant sedatives, but the detectives would say that she had not appeared to be under the influence of drugs.

Phillips talked to Velma alone at first, advising her of her rights, going over the checks with her. They then were joined by Lovett and Parnell. Lovett told Velma that they understood she knew Stuart Taylor. When she acknowledged that she did, he asked if she knew that he’d been killed by arsenic.

Velma seemed shocked at the news. The detectives asked about their relationship. Had they argued? Fought? Was Stuart’s drinking bad? Had he ever hit her?

Velma broke into tears. “Y’all think I poisoned Stuart, don’t you?” she said. Then, with bite in her voice, she asked, “What would I have to gain by poisoning him? I was going to marry him.”

She was the one who had taken care of him when he was sick, she went on, the one who had taken him to the hospital for help.

Was anybody else with him during that time? she was asked.

No, she acknowledged.

How could he have gotten the poison?

She didn’t know.

The detectives were more certain than ever that Velma had killed Taylor, but she steadfastly denied any involvement.

Would she be willing to take a lie detector test? Lovett asked. She most certainly would, she assured him, and it appeared to be no bluff. They would arrange one and get back to her. She was free to go. Phillips would take her home.

Velma was clearly shaken, and as she was leaving, Parnell said, “Velma, you know, this can go all the way back to your mother.” He wanted her to realize that they knew about the others, wanted her to worry about it. She gave him a sharp look, then turned away, saying nothing.

On Saturday morning, Lovett and Parnell went to Bill Storms’ house to give Alice the information she had been seeking for more than a month: the autopsy results.

They were sorry to have to tell her that her father had died from arsenic poisoning, they said, and they felt certain he’d been murdered. Alice burst into tears and nearly collapsed. “Who in heaven’s name would have given it to him?” she asked when she had recovered enough to speak.

“We suspect Velma Barfield,” Lovett said. He and Parnell went on to explain why and to question her about her father’s relationship with Velma.

Alice told them about her father’s last days, the checks Velma had forged, Stuart’s discovery of her prison sentence, their arguments and breakups. As she did, her fury was growing. All she could think about was how she had trusted Velma, how she had taken her into their family, how sweet Velma had always seemed. Velma had called regularly during her most difficult times with her pregnancy and her M.S., Alice said, calling just to say that she was praying for her and requesting prayers for her at church. And when she had given birth to her healthy, beautiful child she had been convinced that those prayers had helped to make it possible. Alice and her family were Catholic, and she remembered, too, how Velma had prayed with their priest right in this room on the night of her father’s death, prayed for Stuart’s soul and for peace for them all, and how later Alice had stayed up all night, unable to sleep, but Velma had slept soundly in the room beside her child, Stuart’s grandbaby, snoring all night. Poor Velma, she had thought, she’s so exhausted from looking after Daddy. Velma had made fools of them all. she now knew, and her sense of betrayal was beyond expression.

Velma still called regularly, innocently asking if she’d heard anything about the autopsy, saying how good Stuart had been to her and how much she missed him, Alice told the detectives.

Before they left, the detectives asked Alice and Bill not to talk about the investigation to anybody. They could let Velma know that they were aware of the autopsy results, since she already knew that herself, but they shouldn’t say anything else.

Later that afternoon, Velma called, asking if Alice had heard about the autopsy. When Alice replied that she had, Velma went on to reveal that the police had come to inform her the day before, that they had questioned her with seeming suspicion, upsetting her greatly, and how indignant she was that they could think that she would hurt Stuart when she was the one who had cared for him and loved him. She thought the sheriffs department was trying to cover up wrongdoing at the hospital by blaming her, she said, and she didn’t appreciate it one bit.

Alice went along with her, hearing her out as if nothing was wrong, but it wasn’t easy. “I put a crease in my lower lip,” she later said. “I was about ready to come out with a few choice words.”

On Monday, Bill Storms came to the sheriffs department carrying a check that Alice had discovered in her father’s most recent bank statement. The check was for $300, payable to Velma. But the signature on it clearly was not Stuart’s, and Bill brought other checks signed by Stuart that proved it. The check was dated January 31, the day Stuart fell ill. It had been cashed February 2, the day before Stuart’s death. Bill had just handed the detectives and Joe Freeman Britt a motive for murder.

Wilbur Lovett was at First Union Bank later that day trying to find the person who had cashed the check Bill Storms had brought him when Ronnie Burke called Alf Parnell and told him that he was on his way to the sheriffs department—and he was bringing his mother.

Bob Jacobson was driving to work Tuesday morning, March 14, his radio tuned to Lumberton station WTSB when he heard a news report that a woman had been charged in the poisoning death of her boyfriend. In North Carolina, murder by poison was automatically a capital case, and only a few lawyers in Lumberton who accepted court-appointed cases met the criteria for trying capital cases. Jacobson was one, although he had not yet tried one. Robeson County courts had a rotating system for appointing lawyers in major cases for indigent defendants and this was Jacobson’s week. He just caught the woman’s name—Velma Barfield. If she didn’t have the money to hire a lawyer, he knew, she was about to become his client. A short, sandy-haired man in his mid-thirties, with an open, freckled face, Jacobson stopped by his office, then walked to the courthouse.

Ronnie and Pam were already at the courthouse with Velma’s sisters, Arlene and Faye, all of them still reeling from the events of the past twenty-four hours. They had gone to the jail earlier and learned that Velma was about to be taken to the courthouse for her first appearance before a judge. At the courthouse, Ronnie saw Alf Parnell, who told him he would try to arrange for her family to see her afterward.

Ronnie would never forget how his mother looked when she was led into court that morning: befuddled, depressed, sick, angry. She was only forty-five, but she looked like an old woman.

District Court Judge Charles McLain asked if she had a lawyer, or the money to hire one, and Ronnie could barely hear her as she answered no. McClain appointed Jacobson to represent her, then ordered her sent to Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh for psychiatric evaluation, a standard procedure in cases of such gravity. Ronnie was pleased that Jacobson would be representing his mother. Jacobson taught night classes at Robeson Tech, where Ronnie worked, and he liked him.

After the judge’s rulings, Jacobson led Velma to a small room off the courtroom for their first meeting. Later, he would recall that he got very little from that encounter. Velma was in no shape to be questioned. She kept saying that she hadn’t meant to kill them, only to make them sick.
Them?
thought Jacobson. She was charged only with killing her boyfriend. Not until later would he learn that his new client had already confessed to killing four people. That was going to make his job extremely difficult.

After Jacobson finished, deputies allowed Ronnie, Pam, Arlene and Faye into the room to see Velma. The meeting was brief and awkward, a gathering of strained faces and sad eyes that didn’t want to meet. Questions raged in the minds of Velma’s children and sisters: Why? How could she have done these horrible things? What had been going on in her mind? But nobody asked them, and Velma offered no apologies, no explanations.

Hardly anything was said, for nobody knew what to say. For Velma’s children and sisters, their very presence said everything that was important at the moment: They were still family. They were there for her. They hugged her. Then the deputies took her away. The next time Ronnie and Pam saw their mother she would be in the depressing and frightening ward for the criminally insane at Dorothea Dix Hospital, and she would be in pain, angry, bitter and crying, going through the agonies of withdrawal.

That afternoon Lumberton’s daily newspaper, the
Robesonian,
carried its first notice of Velma’s arrest, a brief, single-column report buried on page two under the obituaries. It was headlined, “Woman Charged in Poisoning Murder.” Near the end, a single sentence gave the sole hint that this could develop into a bigger story. It quoted Hubert Stone, the chief of detectives, as saying the investigation was continuing and that it could shed light on three other suspicious deaths.

By the following morning, the
Fayetteville Times
had made Velma’s arrest a page-one story, and the sheriff was quoted as saying that his officers were trying to link her to at least three other deaths, including her mother’s.