Death Sentence
The True Story of Velma Barfield's Life, Crimes, and Punishment
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
In this “true story that reads like a novel,” the #1 New York Times–bestselling author reveals the facts behind a notorious Southern murder case (Library Journal).
When North Carolina farmer Stuart Taylor died after a sudden illness, his forty-six-year-old fiancée, Velma Barfield, was overcome with grief. Taylor’s family grieved with her—until the autopsy revealed traces of arsenic poisoning. Turned over to the authorities by her own son, Velma stunned her family with more revelations. This wasn’t the first time she had committed cold-blooded murder, and she would eventually be tried by the “world’s deadliest prosecutor” and sentenced to death.
This book probes Velma’s stark descent into madness, her prescription drug addiction, and her effort to turn her life around through Christianity. From her harrowing childhood to the crimes that incited a national debate over the death penalty, to the final moments of her execution, Velma Barfield’s life of crime and punishment, revenge and redemption, this is crime reporting at its most gripping and profound.
“A painfully intimate, moving story about the life and death of the only woman executed in the U.S. between 1962–1998 . . . With graceful writing and thorough reporting, it makes the reader look hard at something dark and sad in the human soul . . . Breathes new life into the true crime genre.” —The News & Observer
“Undertakes to answer the questions about the justice system and the motives that drive women to kill.” —The Washington Post Book World
“An extraordinary piece of writing . . . The most chilling description of a legal execution that we are ever likely to get.” —Citizen-Times
“Taut and engrossing on the nature of justice and the death penalty as well as on guilt and responsibility.” —Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1978, 52-year-old grandmother Velma Barfield admitted to poisoning four people, including her own mother. While she would be convicted of only one murder--that of her fiance, Stuart Taylor--it would be enough for her to die by lethal injection in 1984, the first woman to be executed in the U.S. after the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1974. Relying mostly on anecdotes from Barfield's two children, veteran true-crime writer Bledsoe (Before He Wakes; Blood Games) glides smoothly through Barfield's history, from a brief look into her own poor, brutalized childhood through the love and stability she provided for her own young children and finally to her decline into the prescription-drug addiction, which Barfield's lawyer would argue compromised her judgment and her responsibility. Bledsoe's account of the trial itself, particularly of the courtroom antics of district attorney Joe Freeman Britt ("the world's deadliest prosecutor"), is so vivid that it is hard to believe he was not there. Likewise, the tortured ambivalence of Barfield's son Ronnie for a mother whose drug problems destroyed his life, but whom he still remembers as his class mom, adds a depth of feeling that is often difficult to capture in true-crime literature. It is only when Barfield becomes a born-again Christian that Bledsoe's narrative gets a bit heavy-handed; although he tries to balance the testimonials to Barfield's newfound faith with interviews with the victims' families, the former far outnumber the latter. But ultimately, for Bledsoe, Barfield's story seems to be a cautionary tale that discredits the death penalty because it offers no possibility of redemption, no second chances.
