Death Sentence (39 page)

Ronnie wanted to take Michael to see his mother, and in March Joanna okayed a visit. On a Friday afternoon, Ronnie drove to the cottage where Joanna lived, arriving at the appointed time. Nobody was home. He waited, growing more upset as time passed. After more than a hour, Joanna appeared in the Pinto station wagon that once had been his. A friend was with her. Michael was in the backseat.

Ronnie walked over to the car smiling at his son. As he remembered the incident later, Joanna asked, “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?” Ronnie replied. “I came to get Michael. I told you I wanted to take him to see my mom tomorrow.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“You can’t do that. That’s not fair. I told my mom I’d bring him.”

“I’m the one who decides what Michael does now. You don’t have any say in it.”

“I’m taking him with me,” Ronnie said angrily, reaching for the car door, and Joanna’s friend started to get out.

“Look,” Ronnie told him, “this is between me and Joanna. I don’t want any problem with you. I didn’t come here for trouble. I just came for my son.”

“You’re not taking him anywhere,” Joanna said.

Ronnie was so angry that he was afraid of what he might do. He didn’t want to make things worse for himself or for Michael. He left and went to a friend’s house in Laurinburg where he brooded until after midnight. Despite his friend’s attempt to get him to stay the night, Ronnie declined, saying he wanted to drive on to Raleigh. Instead, he returned to Joanna’s house, arriving about two.

He stepped onto the small porch and knocked. The door had no window. He knocked louder. No response. He continued beating on the door until he heard somebody on the other side.

“Joanna, it’s Ronnie, open the door.”

Still no response.

“I’ve thought about this,” Ronnie called, “and I’m really upset. You need to just open the door and let me take Michael and be done with it.”

“I want you to leave right now,” Joanna said. “If you don’t leave, I’m calling the police.”

Enraged, Ronnie stepped back and kicked the door with all his strength. The door flew inward in a great shattering of glass, one hinge breaking free from the frame. A mirror had been mounted on the other side of the door and it had broken. Joanna stood in her nightgown screaming, blood running from a cut on her leg where a piece of the mirror had hit her. Ronnie caught a glimpse of Michael crying. But he did not see Joanna’s friend. He only saw a baseball bat suddenly coming toward his head.

He ducked, and the bat hit the doorframe with a resounding whack. “Goddamn it, you’re going to jail,” he could hear Joanna shouting. “You broke into my house.”

The next blow caught Ronnie across the shoulder, knocking him backward. The man came onto the porch, still swinging.

“You son of a bitch, you’re not hitting me with that bat again,” Ronnie yelled, lunging for it. Both toppled from the porch, cursing and gasping for breath. At one point Ronnie had the bat, then the other man had it, swinging wildly, hitting Ronnie on the back and legs.

“Don’t swing that damn bat at me anymore,” Ronnie yelled. “I’m leaving, I’m leaving.”

With his fury spent, he was ashamed and frightened that he had again reacted with violence. He realized that if he didn’t learn to control himself he could end up in jail—or worse. He drove to the police station and reported what had happened. The officer was sympathetic. He said he would drive out to Joanna’s and try to smooth things over. He got Ronnie’s address and told him to go home and wait to see if charges developed. He also strongly advised him not to try to get Michael again without a court order.

Ronnie did not get such an order until the divorce proceedings on May 14. He was ordered to pay fifty dollars a week in child support and was allowed to have Michael for one weekend each month, one week at Christmas, and two weeks each summer beginning in 1985. His first visitation would not be until Saturday, June 2, when he could see Michael for six hours at the home of his mother-in-law. On the following day, he could take him for three hours. It would not be until the second monthly visitation in July that Ronnie could take Michael to Raleigh to see his grandmother—and that, Ronnie knew, might be the last time that either would get to see the other.

That possibility became all the more real only a week after Ronnie’s divorce when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a seven-to-two vote, refused to hear Velma’s appeal. The decision was expected, and Velma tried to take it in stride.

“Now all that’s left to do is go to the governor for clemency,” she wrote to a friend. “I know my Lord is still in control. I won’t question this. My daughter and youngest sister are really finding it difficult to cope with what my future holds.”

What she didn’t know was what a difficult time Ronnie was having. She thought that he was stronger, better prepared than Pam. But after Velma called to give him the news, Ronnie dealt with it by doing exactly what he had done almost every night for more than a year. He went out and got drunk.

His drinking was as bad as his father’s ever had been, and he had no desire to control it. He looked forward to leaving work every day and heading for the bars. He sometimes drank until two in the morning, slept a few hours and always made it to work on time, usually with a hangover.

He would stop drinking a day or two before he was to see his mother, however, and brace himself to appear strong for her sake, and for Pam’s. He didn’t want his mother to find out that he was drinking, didn’t want her to know that, deep down, he felt weak, hopeless and guilt-ridden.

“Does This Woman Deserve to Die?” read the big, bold headline on page one of the
Village Voice
in its June 5 edition. “A Grandmother on Death Row.”

Elin Schoen’s story, along with a photo of a benevolent, slightly smiling Velma, took up two-thirds of the front page and continued over nine pages inside. It was the longest and most thorough story about Velma’s life and troubles yet written, the first to appear outside of North Carolina, and the first to reveal Velma’s claim that she had been raped by her father. Schoen also wrote about the political race between Governor Hunt and Jesse Helms and its potential effect on clemency.

Appearing with the story was an informational box offering instructions for readers who wanted to write to Hunt to urge clemency.

The effect of the story was immediate—and stunning to Jimmie Little. All three TV networks wanted interviews. Reporters from major newspapers and national magazines called, as did reporters from other countries. Letters pleading for Velma to be spared began arriving at the support committee’s post office box. They soon would number in the hundreds, then the thousands. Other letters and calls went to the governor’s office.

Until this point Little had been laboring to get reporters from regional TV stations and newspapers to interview Velma to get her story known. Suddenly, he was deluged with so many requests that coordinating them became a problem. Would CBS get the first interview, or NBC?

After the Supreme Court had again refused to hear Velma’s case, the state asked Judge Franklin Dupree to set aside the stay of execution under which Velma had been living since March 1982. On Friday, June 8, Dupree issued a one-paragraph ruling that the stay had been automatically dissolved by the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Velma’s case on May 21. The state wasted no time in scheduling a hearing for a new execution date. It would be Wednesday, June 13, in Elizabethtown.

On the morning of the hearing, Velma was seen on both
The Today Show
on NBC and the
CBS Morning News,
talking about her addiction to prescription drugs and her remorse about the murders. Pam, too, was interviewed on CBS. “She’s a warm person whose family loves her dearly,” she said of her mother. “I’ll support her to the very end.”

Not surprisingly, Joe Freeman Britt had a different opinion. “Velma Barfield is a sweet little old lady in appearance, and underneath she is a cold-blooded merciless killer,” he said. “She is dangerous to society and don’t let anybody kid you. She wears this nice little grandmother cloak and her religiosity as a kind of protection.”

Velma had a doctor’s certificate allowing her to miss the hearing because of her angina, but about a hundred people were present, including Ronnie, Pam, Faye, and many from the families of Velma’s victims. Under North Carolina law, the execution date could be set for as early as sixty days but no more than ninety. Jimmie Little asked Judge Robert L. Farmer to grant the full ninety days to give him and Dick Burr time to file for a reconsideration by the Supreme Court as well as to work on Velma’s clemency appeal.

“This matter has lingered as long as it took Mrs. Barfield to kill her victims—about six years,” Joe Freeman Britt responded, asking for sixty days. “Enough is enough.”

The judge compromised, but in Velma’s favor, setting the execution for August 31, seventy-nine days away.

After the hearing, reporters cornered Pam in a hallway. She had spoken to reporters before, usually by telephone, or in one-on-one interviews, but here she was surrounded by cameras; microphones were thrust in her face; questions were coming from all directions; and it rattled her. Little waded through the crowd to her rescue, leading her and the rest of the family into a private room. Later, they emerged as a group, and Little told reporters they would speak with them outside. Pam and Faye fought back tears as they tried to answer questions, both trembling.

When a reporter asked Faye if she’d ever suspected something was wrong with Velma, she didn’t want to answer. “I saw changes,” she said, and hesitated. “But I love her. She’s my sister and she raised me. I’ll love her forever.”

The new execution date, presumably Velma’s last, brought her even more attention, not only nationally but internationally. Requests for interviews continued to pour in. Governor Hunt was regularly being asked about Velma at press conferences and campaign stops, and he refused to answer, saying that it was a matter that was still before the courts.

Hunt’s race against Helms was reported to be a draw, and his aides and handlers were clearly irritated by the distraction Velma’s case was causing, the unfavorable attention it was bringing, and the pressure it was putting on Hunt. And, five days after Velma’s execution date was set, the state moved to curtail the attention she was getting.

21

On Monday evening, June 18, five days after the new execution date was set, Jennie Lancaster came to Velma’s cell with bad news. Lancaster, who had become superintendent of the prison in 1982, was clearly unhappy about what she had to do. A call had come from the Department of Correction, she told Velma. She was to be transferred immediately to deathwatch at Central Prison. She had thirty minutes to prepare herself.

Velma was stunned. This was unexpected and unprecedented. Normally, a person facing execution was not put on deathwatch until five days before the event at most.

Living under deathwatch was a grim existence in a tiny, bare cell just beyond the execution chamber. Lights burned around the clock, and prisoners were completely isolated, denied personal items and kept under constant observation.

Velma’s execution date was still seventy-four days away, and she could not understand why this was happening. She stood watching helplessly as guards tossed her family photos, books, letters, writing materials, her scripture placards and other belongings into plastic garbage sacks. When they were finished, no sign remained that she had made this cell her home.

Velma was allowed to take only her Bible, a few toiletries and a letter that had arrived that day from Ruth Graham. After reading an article in the
News & Observer
about Billy and Ruth Graham, Velma had written to Ruth to say how much she admired her dedication to family, how she wished her own family could have been like hers. Ruth had answered and they had been pen pals for more than three years. Velma always found comfort and inspiration in Ruth’s letters, and this was a moment when she needed both.

Ruth had written that she was praying for Velma and her children, and she thanked Velma for being a blessing to her. Her hope, she said, was that Velma would reach many others at Women’s Prison with the message of God’s love. But now, Velma knew, she would not be reaching anybody.

The deathwatch area was separated by a hallway from the execution chamber. It contained four cells, all identical, facing a glass-enclosed control booth, where a guard kept watch around the clock. A stainless steel table with four seats occupied the area between the cells and the control booth, where another guard was stationed. A shower stall with a plastic curtain was beside the control booth.

Velma was placed in Cell C, the same cell, a guard told her, in which James Hutchins had spent his final days. The cell was ten feet long and six feet wide. A steel cot with a thin mattress was attached to one wall. A window four inches wide and four feet long in the center of the electronically operated steel door allowed guards to see inside. A drawer for passing food and small items divided the window near the top.

Things would be much different for Velma here. She would never see another inmate. She would have no familiar guards.

Warden Nathan Rice came to her cell soon after her arrival to instruct her on the rules. Her visits would be restricted to two persons, and they would be held in a tiny booth, separated by glass and steel. If she wanted writing or reading materials other than her Bible, she would have to request them from a guard and return them when she was through. Whenever she met with her lawyer, she would be handcuffed and escorted by four guards who would remain present during their conversations. She would be stripped and searched upon her return.