Death Sentence (48 page)

When Little learned of Ronnie’s decision, he called him at work in Charleston. “I think you need to come on up,” he said. Ronnie knew that Little’s faith in these final appeals was really no greater than his own. He would be there tonight, Ronnie told him.

Little had arranged for Pam and Kirby to have an hour-long visit with Velma at 3:30 that afternoon. Years later, Pam would have little recall, remembering only that the visit was highly emotional. She would remember her mother telling her again how bad she felt about letting her children down and tearing their lives apart.

“I said, ‘Look, Mama, I think I turned out okay, and it’s not me that’s the reason I turned out this way. It’s you, Mama.’”

On the way back to her cell, Velma remarked to her guards that she thought the visit had gone well.

Soon afterward, the captain of the guard, Carol Oliver, appeared at Velma’s cell with a gift. Earlier that day, Oliver had told Velma that if she had any special request—anything within reason—the warden wanted to see that it was granted. Well, for one thing, Velma said, laughing, he could have Kit-Kat bars put in the prison canteen. That was her favorite candy and the canteen didn’t have it. That afternoon, Rice had sent up the street to the 7-Eleven for two Kit-Kat bars, and now Oliver handed them to Velma.

“From the warden,” she said.

“He didn’t have to do that,” Velma said, all smiles.

Oliver remained to chat, and Velma started talking about her visit with her daughter. Pam was such a good, sweet girl, she said. Nobody could have asked for a finer daughter. “You wouldn’t even know she belongs to me, she’s so tall and pretty,” Velma added with a chuckle.

Supper was early again, chicken and dumplings, and after it arrived, the warden came to talk about final arrangements for Thursday and to ask if Velma had special requests for her last meal. She would just have whatever everybody else was getting, she said, and thanked him for the candy bars.

Velma returned the nearly full supper tray just as Skip Pike showed up to see how she was doing. They talked for half an hour, and before he left, he asked if he could pray with her.

Did she have any special prayer requests? Only that he pray for her children, grandchildren and the rest of her family that their pain might be relieved.

“Never once did she ask me to pray that God somehow deliver her from execution,” Pike later recalled. “She never asked me to pray that God change the minds of the judges. Whenever we prayed, the only thing she really desired was that God forgive her and give her the grace to walk through that process with dignity, with her head up and with firm assurance that her foundation in Christ was the solid rock upon which she stood.”

As Pike was leaving, Judge Franklin Dupree was just ending his two-hour hearing on Velma’s appeal in the federal building across town.

Dick Burr had argued fervently to Dupree that Velma’s drug withdrawal had produced such irrational behavior during her trial that it was proof that she was incapable of understanding the proceedings and cooperating in her defense.

“She got on the witness stand and argued that arsenic poisoning could not kill someone,” he said. “Then she applauded the district attorney.”

The combativeness and bizarre behavior produced by the drug withdrawal had given the jury an unfair impression of her, he maintained. “It was a picture that destined her to be sentenced to death.”

Judge Dupree didn’t hand down an immediate decision. He wanted to go to his chambers to review the arguments and think about it.

After returning from the shower, Velma asked that the TV be turned on so that she could listen for news bulletins. She began rolling her hair, and after she’d finished, she requested a pen and her special box of cards. She grew quiet and pensive as she wrote.

When the news bulletin came at eight saying that Judge Dupree had rejected her appeal, Velma did not even turn toward the TV. She paused only a second and went right on writing her final message to her daughter. Her execution was now less than thirty hours away.

As hopeless as the judge’s decision may have sounded to Velma, her lawyers actually were heartened by it. The judge had issued a probable cause certificate with his ruling, alerting the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that the primary issue, Velma’s competency to stand trial, had substance and should be seriously considered.

Here at last was a ray of hope that Velma might be spared—at least temporarily.

25

Ronnie hadn’t had a drink since his angry visit with his mother Saturday. If she was going to be executed this week—and he still had no doubt of that—he wanted to face it clear-headed. He had to show her that he could be the strong and reliable person she wanted him to be.

After Jimmie Little’s call Wednesday afternoon, Ronnie didn’t get away from Charleston until late. He was passing through Fayetteville three hours later when he heard on the radio that Judge Dupree had rejected his mother’s appeal. He turned off the radio and drove on to Raleigh in silence, deep in thought, trying to imagine what lay ahead, how he would react, but it was all too alien to picture.

He didn’t know Raleigh well and had trouble finding the Hilton. It was after ten before he checked in. He encountered Sister Teresa in the lobby, hugged her and thanked her for all that she had done for his mother.

Richard Burr was on his way to Richmond, Ronnie learned. The Fourth Circuit Court had set a hearing for 8:30 the next morning. Jimmie Little was at Central Prison with Velma. Mary Ann Tally’s husband, John, had prepared a will and sent it from Fayetteville by bus a few hours earlier. Little was discussing it with her. Pam and Kirby were in a room upstairs, as were Faye and Cliff, and Sister Teresa directed Ronnie there.

Both Pam and Faye were taking Valium, and everybody had been drinking, Ronnie discovered when he got to his sister’s room. He got the feeling that Pam and Faye still believed that this was not going to happen, that the Fourth Circuit Court would intervene in the morning and they’d all go back home.

Velma slept soundly through the night, not knowing for certain whether it would be her last on earth. She awoke only once, at two-thirty.

“You okay?” asked the guard.

“Yes,” she replied and returned quickly to sleep.

She did not stir again until after six when she coughed, sat up and asked for hot water and instant coffee.

“I really slept well,” she told the guard who brought the coffee. “Must’ve been because I didn’t sleep much night before last.”

Later, she would joke and laugh about how hard she’d slept.

She read her Bible while she sipped the coffee.

“Appears to be very calm,” a departing guard noted in the log, well aware that she might never see Velma again, that barring some last-minute intervention, in just nineteen hours Velma would be dead.

When the new guards arrived at seven, Velma requested her hair rollers and more coffee. Fifteen minutes later, she had finished rolling her hair and was reading the mail she hadn’t gotten to the day before.

This would be Velma’s busiest day yet on deathwatch. Visits were to begin at nine with the Roanes and end at five when she would say good-bye to her children. Velma had asked for her writing materials and address book, and she was working on a letter when a guard reminded her that she needed to get dressed.

By nine o’clock, Velma was handcuffed and ready to go. Earlier, she had been told that Elin Schoen, the
Village Voice
writer who had set off the worldwide barrage of media attention about her, was there and wanted to see her. The warden had granted Schoen a brief visit while Velma was with the Roanes.

Velma had started down the hallway toward the inmate elevator with her four guards when Skip Pike came around the corner carrying a yellow mum that he had cut from a pot on the chapel altar a few minutes earlier.

“Mrs. Barfield, this is from the men of Central Prison,” he said. “It’s a pale token of the love and concern so many of them are showing for you today.”

For a moment the guards seemed uncertain whether to allow her to accept the flower, but they made no move to stop her when she reached for it.

“I want you to thank them for me,” Velma said.

“She was tickled to death,” Pike later recalled. “She gave me the most beautiful smile. Oh, she had a smile that could melt the coldest heart.”

Jimmie Little knew one of the judges on the Fourth Circuit Court. J. Dixon Phillips had been the dean of the law school at the University of North Carolina when Little was a student. Little knew him to be a brilliant lawyer, a superb judge, a person who knew North Carolina and understood its politics, and he thought that Burr had a good chance to win his vote for a stay of execution. But Burr had to get two votes, and not long into his arguments Thursday morning, he could tell from the questions and comments he was getting that he was going to have a hard time winning the other two.

“Is there a necessity that the whole course of the past be examined and reopened?” asked Judge Francis Murnaghan.

“She really got a due process trial as far as anyone knew at that time,” observed Judge James Sprouse.

Hugh Hoyle had been staying in close touch with Sister Teresa, Phil Carter and Jimmie Little all week. He was determined to keep his promise to be there at the end for Velma and to preach her funeral, but the uncertainty of her appeals left him in limbo. On Wednesday, Little called and told him that he should come on. Hoyle flew to Greensboro, spent the night with his parents, and borrowed a car from his brother to drive to Raleigh early Thursday morning. Pike and Carter were waiting in the warden’s conference room. They told Hoyle how Velma was doing, then began discussing the memorial service to be held at Women’s Prison, as well as the funeral itself, if they were indeed to happen.

Hoyle had brought Velma’s funeral instructions in his briefcase, along with some of her writings about the Bible and her faith. On the plane he had begun to outline his sermon, and he got out his notes to share with the two chaplains.

Hoyle was getting ready to go upstairs for his visit when somebody came to tell them that a bulletin had just come over the radio. The Fourth Circuit Court had denied Velma a stay and refused her appeal. The three ministers looked at each other; nobody had to speak what all were thinking. They almost certainly were facing an execution in just sixteen hours.

Hoyle realized that Velma was in the visiting area and had no way of knowing this. He would have to be the one to break the news. He braced himself and headed for the elevator, carrying his Bible and a travel communion kit in a black leather case.

Velma had been moved from one of the visiting cubicles to a larger, glassed room for her meeting with Hoyle, which was to be a contact visit. She stood when she saw him coming, smiling broadly, clearly happy that he was there—she hadn’t seen him since Christmas when he had come home to visit family. Later, he would remember her as being almost radiant.

They embraced and sat in plastic chairs facing one another, Hoyle holding her hand. He knew no other way to tell her than to be straightforward.

“Velma, I just heard that the last appeal has been turned down.”

She looked away briefly but showed no other reaction, remaining silent only a moment.

“Well, that’s what I figured would happen,” she said softly.

“Velma, is there anything in your life that is not confessed to the Lord that you need to make right?”

“No, Brother Hoyle, I’m ready to go.”

And she smiled.

From that point it was easier.

Hoyle read aloud some of Velma’s favorite scriptures. He administered communion, both of them on their knees on the tile floor by the plastic chairs. They prayed, Hoyle thanking the Lord for the opportunities they’d had to learn and worship together, for the friendship they’d shared.

Afterward, Hoyle told her that he’d brought with him the letters she had written to the families of her victims and her own family back in the spring of 1981, expressing her remorse and asking their forgiveness. Velma had been unable to send the letters because of her lawyers’ concerns. He would still carry out her wishes to deliver them if she wanted, he told her. He would leave the letters with prison officials so that she could read through them, make any changes and put the current date on them.

Velma had one request of Hoyle. She wanted him to be with her children tonight, she said, and she’d like them to be at the prison so she’d know they were close. He gave his word.

The time seemed to have flown, and now it was almost gone. Hoyle wanted to sing a hymn, “Within the Veil.” He started, his voice firm and strong, “Within the veil, I now would come into the holy place…” Velma joined in softly, their eyes joined. But halfway through the hymn, Hoyle found himself unable to continue. He broke down sobbing. Velma reached to touch his arm. And then the guards were there, saying time was up.

“I hugged her,” Hoyle recalled years later. “I kissed her cheek. I said, ‘Velma, my grandpa is in heaven. Will you look him up when you get there and tell him I’m on my way?’ And she smiled and said, ‘I will. Ruth Graham’s got some folks she wants me to look up, too.’”

Looking into her face for the last time was the most telling incident of his ministry, Hoyle later would say.