Velma Barfield: The Death Row Granny with a Secret Poison

She wore floral dresses, went to church, and baked cookies for her neighbors. But behind her grandmotherly smile, Velma Barfield was quietly becoming one of America’s most chilling female serial killers.

Born in rural North Carolina in 1932, Velma lived a seemingly normal life, until her dark addiction and deeper desperation turned her into something far more sinister. By the 1970s, loved ones around her began dying in mysterious ways. The cause? Illness. Heart failure. Natural causes… or so it seemed.

But something wasn’t right.

When her fiancé, Stuart Taylor, suddenly fell ill and died in 1978, his family demanded an autopsy. The results were horrifying: his system was full of arsenic. Velma had poisoned him.

The investigation that followed revealed a horrifying truth: Stuart wasn’t her only victim. Over the span of several years, Velma had poisoned at least six people, including her own mother, two elderly patients she cared for, and another partner. Each death had been written off, until it was too late.

Velma claimed she wasn’t evil, just an addict. She admitted to the poisonings but said her addiction to tranquilizers clouded her mind. Still, the court saw through the soft exterior. She was sentenced to death.

On November 2, 1984, Velma Barfield was executed by lethal injection. She was the first woman executed in the U.S. after the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, and the first woman ever executed by lethal injection.

She spent her final days writing to the families of her victims and quoting Bible verses. But behind those prayers and polite smiles was a woman who had calmly, methodically, and fatally betrayed the trust of everyone who loved her.

Velma Barfield wasn’t a monster in the shadows, she was one in plain sight.

Truth is scarier than fiction, so wear it.

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