Death Sentence: The True Story of
Velma Barfields Life, Crimes, and
Punishment by Jerry Bledsoe
Jerry Bledsoe Does It Again!
In 1984, Velma Barfield became the first woman since 1962 to be
executed in the United States. Her crimes were unusual: Barfield was
convicted of the 1978 arsenic poisoning of her fiancé, Stuart Taylor, and
she admitted killing three other people with poison, including her own
mother. But her path to execution was circuitous, involving appeal after
appeal to various high courts, a grassroots movement to prevent her
death, a jailhouse spiritual epiphany, and subsequent recollections of
childhood abuse and torment that she claimed eventually led to her abuse
of prescription tranquilizers, which in turn clouded her judgment and
enabled her to perform murderous crimes. Death Sentence, however, is
as much about the people she left behind as it is about her fate. Jerry
Bledsoe chooses Barfields son, Ronnie Burke, as his protagonist. Burke
is a greatly sympathetic character whose sense of horror and shame
leaps from the pages. Burke watches his own life fall apart as his mother

undergoes a transformation in prison, while he uses every last ounce of
his strength to try to save her life. He feels duty bound to help her, but
nearing the end of the appeals process, he begs her to just quit and
accept her ultimate penalty. Yet at her funeral, divorced and in the
beginning stages of alcoholism, he cries and begs her forgiveness,
apologizing for not doing more to save her. Openly critical of the death
penalty, Bledsoe focuses a surgically precise camera on the process of
state-sponsored execution and its effects, and the result is a grim but
gripping and suspenseful tale. --Tjames Madison
Personal Review: Death Sentence: The True Story of Velma
Barfields Life, Crimes, and Punishment by Jerry Bledsoe
Bledsoe is a true crime master who exemplifies the best of the genre.
Original research, fluid storytelling and an eye for the telling detail. You
can't do much better than this in the genre. But make no mistake, this is a
sad, depressing story that you may wish you hadn't read. Whether you
support the death penalty or not, it's hard to argue that death sentences
weren't meant for multiple, intentional murderers like Velma Barfield.
Barfield was clearly a drug addict with all the most unpleasant behaviors
associated with addiction. When she was in a controlled, low-stress
environment Barfield not only functioned, she flourished. When she was
stressed or, less generously perhaps, not getting her way, look out. Velma
had a nasty streak and didn't mind taking it out on 2 husbands, a fiancee,
two elderly patients and her own mother. Not to mention an attempt on her
daughter and son-in-law. The list of her crimes - murder, arson, DUI, theft,
insurance fraud, forgery and others - is shocking.
It's also hard to reconcile with the image of the "death row grandmother",
the born-again Christian who helped other prisoners. Except, of course,
that prison is another controlled and (in Velma's case) a low-stress
environment. One that kept the spotlight locked on Velma, a spotlight she
loved. I felt compassion for Velma and her deprived childhood and troubled
marriage but I'm still not convinced I buy her stories of being sexually
abused by multiple relatives. Velma always seemed to deliver to the
listener what they wanted to hear. Was this just another case of that? I
honestly don't know. I do know that Velma was guilty of at least 6 murders
and had she not gone to jail would have committed more.
Among the victims are Velma's children who showed a superhuman love
and forgiveness for their mother. She lied to them, manipulated them, in
one case poisoned them, used them, etc and they still loved her. I find it
intriguing that Velma's spiraling out of control began not just with her
husband joining the Jaycees and her hysterectomy but with her children
entering their late teens. They were less dependent on her, less under her
control. Sadly, Velma continued to manipulate them to the very end never
fully taking responsibility for her crimes and thus leaving them feeling guilty
that they "should have stopped her." Broken marriages, broken lives, they
are Velma Barfield's last victims and Bledsoe tells their story with a
compassion their mother was sadly incapable of.

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