You're.

Listening to a Morbid Network podcast.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.

And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid.

This is Morbid. This is Morbid.

Yay, COVID. But almost without. Almost without. So close to being without. So close. She sent her test this morning and it had the faintest line. I said, Well, we're related anyway, and we can not get back to work. I'm ready to come in.

I've done a good job. We isolated the hell out of me right away. I still don't know where I got COVID, by the way. I don't go anywhere. There's that.

Wait, like we were saying with the stomach bug, you couldn't even get it off a Starbucks.

Cup or something. I know. That's why I'm like, What the fuck? But the good news is no one else got it.

Yeah, that's correct.

No one else got it. I think we're good at this point, but I think no one else got it. We isolated the hell out of me right away.

Smart.

Thank goodness for John. Shout out to John.

Shout out.

To John. Shout out to John and to my mother-in-law for being the greatest.

People ever. Yeah, we love because God damn. I know I felt so bad for you. I was in the pool at my all-inclusive resort when.

You texted me.

And I sent you a little picture like, Oh, that sucks.

I was like, Yeah, I'm dying.

I felt really bad. You were like, Yeah, I just broke my 103-degree fever. I was like, Oh, I'm drinking a Pina Colada. Not relatable. I'm watching a.

Little lizard run by.

Oh, my God. There are so many cute little lizards in Aruba. -it's true. -my little honeymoon. -aruba is beautiful. Oh, my God. It was so much fun. Take me back. Take me back. It was fun, but that was the longest vacation. No, that was one of the longest vacations I've ever gone on. The first we've gone on in a long time. It was amazing and a lot of fun. But by the end of it, I think we got there on Friday, and I feel like by Wednesday, Thursday, we were like, Okay, I want to go home now.

Yeah, you're like, All right.

We're such homebodies.

We are, too. Yeah. It's like I can have a little bit of it. Then I'm like, All right. I want to be home in my pajamas on.

My couch with my kids. Yeah, me too, with my kids. Because you're watching them on the cameras. Oh, yeah. You're watching the cats on the cameras.

I miss.

Remy, and Franklin and Locke. I really missed your kids.

I know, they missed you. It was a wild week.

It was, but I'm back. You're almost COVID-free, and.

Here we are. Here we are. We're going to start off 2024 strong. Ending 2023 really strong.

Yeah, for real. Wait, you had COVID right around this time last year.

Not last year.

Was that.

Two years ago? Yeah, it was like two years ago. Oh, God, what was time? I think it was like 2021.

Oh.

Okay. Yeah, we got to break it down. Oh, yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. It was around the same time.

Yeah, around this time last year you had that crazy stomach bug and you couldn't do Thanksgiving.

Oh, yeah, got the stomach bug on Thanksgiving.

But we got to do Thanksgiving this year, which was nice.

We did. I waited until after. That's what's even funnier is I waited only about a week after Thanksgiving to get COVID. Not even a full week. I really barely made it happen. But apparently, Thanksgiving is tough for me. But I don't know what it is.

Chill out. I feel like you do a lot. You put a lot on your plate, and it's at the end of the year where your kids are already probably brought home something nasty.

That's very true.

You.

Run down. I just get it all. Let me attack you. That's it. But I got to say, John is the greatest human ever because he just kept the house running.

Yeah.

Kept the kids running. Their teeth were brushed, their hair were brushed.

That's the thing. I used to- They were washed. They were washed. You posted that video, but I see it all the time of millennial dads just being way more hands-on than dads of past generations.

Being parents instead of a babysitter.

Oh, my God. I was just going to say just raising their kids instead of babysitting.

Because he always hates when somebody will be like, Oh, is dad babysitting? He's like, I'm not babysitting.

My fucking kids.

They're mine. They're dad. I'm raising them alongside this.

Other human. Drew said that the other day. He was like, I hate when dads will say that. I was like, That makes me want to have five.

Million babies. That is a good thing. But yeah, he's kept this whole shit afloat.

So shout out to John. You're so close.

I'm so close.

I can feel it.

I feel great.

Yeah, you look great. You don't even look bad.

Yeah, I feel great. I'm really just waiting for that little line to disappear.

I do like your hospital socks.

Thank you. I do have grippy socks.

Straight-up.

Hospital socks.

Yeah, they're straight-up hospital socks. With the little.

Feet on the bottom. There goes feet. What the fuck?

I fall a lot. I slide. I can't have bare feet. I fall a lot. Walking around, that's fucked up. I disagree. Yeah, just in my own head.

That's fucked up. I just hate when my toes feel like too bunch together.

No, my toes can't touch.

No, thank you. I'm a.

Free foot lady. I need socks, but I have hardwood floors everywhere and I will fall in a sock and it has happened before. Yeah, you broke your tailbone once. Just like my kids need to have grippy socks, I need to have grippy socks.

Grippy socks out here.

Grippy socks forever. But moving away from grippy socks.

To.

Someone... This is going to be real depressing. I just want to put that out there ahead of time. We're going to talk about Velma Barfield. Okay. She's a poisoner. She's an extreme poisoner. But my goodness, she has the most depressing life ever.

It's sad. You're like, Welcome back to the island. Welcome back.

But she's cold as ice. But her life just makes you be like, Whoa. She's cold as ice. Like, nothing good was happening here at all. There's just no good. Nothing of what?

Really not.

I mean, it looks like she loved her kids and her kids seem to love her. Honestly, I feel very much for her kids. She has a son and a daughter. They seem to love her, and I don't think they got the same person that did these things. I really feel for them because I'm sure they're still trying to reconcile that.

Yeah, that's like a lot.

To digest. That's a lot. Again, she has a really fucked up childhood and she has a fucked up just life that you're just like, Damn. How were you handed so many bad cards?

But.

Some of the bad cards she took on herself.

All right, let's get into this.

Let's talk about Velma. When Velma Barfield's trial came in the late '70s, which trust me, we'll get to- The '70s. It was late '70s, early '80s. It was the time in the United States when Americans were really just beginning to even deal or grapple with the concept of a serial killer at all. Like, even a male serial killer, any serial killer. Never mind the idea that a woman could commit anything like that. Although women had been sentenced to death for murder before in the US, none had confessed to methodically killing multiple people in such a cold, blooded, callous way and for such a seemingly trivial reason as Velma. Let's talk about who Velma is. Let's. Margie Velma-Ballard. Margie. Was born October 29th, 1932 in Cumberland County, North Carolina.

I think.

She's a Libra. She was a Libra like Mikey.

I think, right? October 29th? Look at that. I'll double-check, but I'm almost sure.

No. No? Fuck me. He said that's.

A Nor. Hold on. Wait, don't tell me.

What's after Libra?

I know. Just don't tell me for a second. I won't because I don't know. I won't because I don't know. Where am I?

You just go, Nope.

October 29th.

Oh, she's a Scorpio.

Oh, all right. Okay. There it is. Yeah.

She was the second of nine children, and her parents were Lilly and Murphy-Bullard. Unfortunately, she had the displeasure of entering the world during the worst part of the Great Depression, so her early life was tough in many ways. Her father was a farmer, so the collapse of cotton prices hit him hard, financially very hard, and it became next to impossible for him to earn enough money to support his very much growing family and also support his aging parents, which he had been doing for some time. In 1935, he gave farming up and went to work for a logging company for a bit, and then he found work at a textile mill in Fayetteville. Now, in Velma's memoir, she wrote a memoir. She wrote, I was afraid of my daddy. Even while still a small child, he had a violent temper and none of us wanted to be around when he blew up. Oh, wow. According to Velma, nearly anything could set that temper off, no matter how little. There was no way of knowing what or when it would happen. Like, what was going to happen and when it was going to happen. No rhyme or reason.

She said, quote, he usually took out his anger on us kids as well as the furniture. That's so fucked. Which can you imagine being such a tiny little person to take your anger out on a small child? No. Or- Tiny person.

Or even on furniture or in front of your kids to create such a violent home like that? What are you doing?

Grow up. Just grow up. Besides being an asshole, Murphy was not good at managing the family's finances even before the depression hit hard. Really? That made things worse. He had a strong work ethic and wasn't afraid of a full day's work, but he also really wanted to impress people. He was a keep up with the Joneses guy, and he would spend money on trivial things for himself instead of things the family needed.

He was already setting them up for failure. Selfish aswell. Even before the depression happened. Yeah.

A relative once said he bought what he wanted instead of what he needed. His pocketbook was always too small for his operation, if you know what I mean. Lilly, the mother, would try to do whatever she could about Murphy's explosive anger and violence. She would try to intervene, try to smooth things over to try and stop him from reacting to everything with anger. She would hide incidents or any accidents that happened that would lead him to abusing the kids. If an accident, knocked something over, she would be like, That was me. You know what I mean? She would just take it on. Now, unfortunately, she was rarely successful. Velma came to resent her mother for the way she tolerated and catered to her father, what she thought was catering to her father, and what she saw as failing to protect her children from his wrath, which obviously-.

The times.

Were very different. -that's tough. Honestly, I can't imagine being in Velma in the children's place. Itry to think. I can't imagine being in Lilly's place.

No, it's impossible.

One day when Velma was 12, she asked her mother, Mama, why do you put up with him? Why do you stay with him like this? When she was 12. The answer, of course, was that Lilly had nowhere else to go. Right. She definitely didn't have the resources necessary to raise nine children by herself. That was the story in a lot of these households that we come to, especially in this time period. It was just a matter of, I can't do.

This by myself. You couldn't do it alone.

But to Velma, who was 12, she thought that excuse was insufficient. She said, I'd sure find someplace else to go, and I will too, when I get older. Unfortunately, that's.

Not true. Yeah, and it's one of those things where it's like you just don't have the life experience to know the position that your mom is in at.

That age. Exactly. Of course not. You're 12. You just look at it. You think you have all the answers. You just look at it and it's a terrible situation. You want to- Why would you deal with it? You can understand she's 12. She has no fucking clue how hard it is to do anything else to get out of that situation. And then howdangerous it is. How dangerous it is. Right. Now, as a child, Velma sought to escape in school, and she was a very good student. Oh, that's good. But she didn't do well being grouped in with many other children. She didn't do well with team things, which I feel that as well.

I thought it was the glimmer in your.

Eye there. I was like, same. Even though she was a good student, the teachers would often chastise her or punish her for her boisterousness and unruly behavior and noted her tendency to have angry outbursts when things didn't.

Go her Even as a young girl. Yeah.

So she's learning.

Setting the groundwork.

Murphy is teaching her. When you don't get your way, you beat the shit out of the furniture or someone else around you.

That's what you do.

Use outbursts. It's like, You teach your kids how to react. It's like this is a perfect... Also, who knows if it's a genetic component there that she's just got anger in her blood that she's going to have to figure out how to control or not.

And.

Scourpios are fiery. There you go. To make matters worse, many of Velma's classmates came from families that were much better off than her own. This was made apparent to everyone because she would come to school in secondhand clothing or handmade clothing. She always brought a very small, very sparse lunch with her. That's so sad. In order to try to minimize this bullying that she was facing, Velma started stealing coins from her father's pants pockets and using it to buy candy and other things for classmates. Kind of like trying to buy herself into people's people liking her. Right. It seemed to work a little bit, but it's not a great way to find friends, I guess. No. She's not learning a lot of really great lessons here. Now, when she reached her teenage years, Velma started dating Thomas Berk, who was a boy she met at church, and he was a boy her father greatly disapproved of. For the most part, they seemed to just hang out, do some mundane activities, drive around, go to the movies, like normal teenage stuff. But, Velma often had a difficult time enjoying herself. She later said, As much as I like being with Thomas and going places with him, I was bothered by thoughts that I should be home instead.

I.

Think Velma had the weight of the world on her shoulders at too.

Young of an age. Sounds like she was probably depressed.

She was thinking about too many problems because she was probably thinking about her brothers and sisters, and her father is an angry, scary guy, and her mom. What they were scary to say. She probably feels so some responsibility at a way too young of an age to be in the home to try to intercede things.

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Now, she's felt this strange pull, which I understand in these situations, to live up to her father's expectations. No matter how unreasonable they were, she just didn't want to disappoint him because he was scary. Her relationship with Thomas started to become a welcome escape from the violence at home. She had the violence at home and then the challenging environment at school that she was still trying to navigate. One evening, about a year into their relationship, Thomas and Velma were driving home from a movie when he turned to her and said, Velma, let's get married. Random. Now, immediately she panicked because she knew her father would lose his mind and would definitely not allow it and would probably react with violence if it was even brought up to him. But the question caused her immediate anxiety, and she was like, You know what? I enjoy being with Thomas. This is a nice escape. She's like, You know what? I might not know if I love him or not, and I don't love him the way that he loves me, but I want to do this. A few days later, while they were driving, Velma brought up the subject because she didn't immediately answer him.

She reminded Thomas that her father would definitely not approve. This time, however, there were additional complications. Her father had found a new job and would be moving the entire family to Wade, which was about an hour away. Okay. Thomas said, Then let's get married right away. Thomas said, Before your daddy leaves, let's just elope. Now, though she wasn't exactly sure again whether she really loved him or just the thought of losing him was upsetting her. She didn't want to lose him. She figured being uprooted from her current life, no matter how distressing it is, would stress her out more because she's used to this.

Awful routine. It's like choosing the less two.

To the less of two stresses. Exactly. But she ended up agreeing to his plan, and the two began making plans to run off and get married. On December first, 1949, Velma's friend, Alvie Pender, came by the house to pick her up for what she told her parents was going to be just a night out. Then the two of them picked up Thomas, and the three of them drove to nearby Dylan, South Carolina, where Velma and Thomas were married, and Alvie was their witness. Once they were married, they returned to their respective homes and didn't say a word. They planned to spring the news on Lilly and Murphy just before they moved. They figured that that would mitigate some of the negative reactions, but I don't know.

About that. Or probably just like they would have less time to take it out on you. Yeah.

Now, that plan only lasted a little more than a day because Thomas convinced Velma that they needed to tell their parents. But Thomas was like, We can't do this. Now, Velma decided to start with her mother. Smart. Hoping she could convince Lilly to tell Murphy, but her mother was like, Uh, no. She was essentially like, You did this. You tell them you decided.

I can't say I blame her. I'd be like, Girl.

You're a married woman. She literally was like, You got married? This is your stuff to tell. That was your choice. The next day, Velma told her father about the marriage, and he reacted slightly as expected. He yelled, he threw things, he demanded they get the marriage annulled. But then all of a sudden, he sat down, put his head in his hands, and started sobbing. What the fuck? This was obviously very unexpected. She had never seen her father sob.

Probably very unnerving.

He was usually violent and angry. This was just not... She was like, What the fuck? She never seen this. Immediately, she felt overwhelming guilt. She was like, I shouldn't have married Thomas. What the fuck did I do? She actually never learned why he reacted that way. But she said from that moment on, there was a drastic change in her and her father's relationship.

I wonder if it was a moment of self-realization for him of like, it was so bad that she saw this as her ticket out and what does she see.

In the sky? That's exactly what I think. I think he violently disapproved of this guy, which, as we will find out, Thomas ends up being not a great husband. He violently disapproved of this guy. He's looking at this guy like, There's no fucking way in hell you're going to marry this guy. She goes and does it. He probably is sitting there, like you said, being like, She had no other option to get away from me. I drove her to this. But to marry this guy who I know is not a good guy.

It seems like it really was a moment.

Of clarity. I wonder if he was just like, What the fuck have I done? I really do think that was a moment, which it's like, I'm glad it came, but my God, dude, it came too late. Too little too late, dude. It also looks like, and spoiler alert, later it looks like Lilly and Murphy end up really loving being grandparents. They fall really hard into the grandparent role. I do wonder if this was the moment that Murphy just said, Fuck, what have I done? I got to turn him this around. Then his grandkids really brought that fatherly thing out in him.

Right.

Which you hear about that sometimes where somebody's a fucking shit parent and then they become a grandparent and the kid is like, Why weren't you like this for me? But you're like, Which is great that you're like this for my kids. I'd rather my kids having this. But I would have.

Loved this. Yeah, and obviously, this side of yousays there, somewhere in there.

It's there. Somewhere in there. So why didn't you give it to me? But it's strange. It's a strange phenomenon.

Family.

Trauma. Yeah, exactly. But, Velma wrote, oddly enough, after that night when I told Daddy about my getting married, he wasn't mean to me ever again. Wow.

I just got chills.

I don't know why. Isn't that a wild one? Now, days later, Velma left her parents' house to live with Thomas and his parents a few miles away. Finally, free of all the abuse, the violence that had basically dominated her for 17 years, Velma, you think, would feel relieved. But she couldn't shake the feeling that she had fucked up and she had hurt her family deeply. That was what kept sticking to her, was I feel like I did something wrong. I hurt my family.

Now.

In retrospect, Velma remembers the first few years of her marriage to Thomas as, quote, the happiest years of her life. There was good times. Shortly after the wedding, they both dropped out of school. Thomas got a job at the Cotton Mill in nearby Red Springs, and they spent most of 1950 and early 1951 living with his parents. Things were generally good. That's great. Unfortunately, though, the job at the mill was tough. Thomas fucking hated it, so he ended up quitting in early 1951. They then moved in with Velma's oldest brother, Oliver, and Thomas found work as a salesman with double-cola bottling company. Now, Thomas's job with the Cola company paid enough that they were able to actually get a house of their own a smalltheir house of their own. A few months later, and soon after, Velma became pregnant and gave birth to her son, Ronald, who they called Ronnie, on December 15th, 1951. She later wrote about this, I was thrilled beyond words. I cried. I was so happy. Now, bless his heart, he was ugly, but I thought he was the prettiest baby I had ever seen.

What the fuck, Velma? She just told your kid ugly?

I thought parents weren't.

Even capable of realizing that their.

Kids were ugly. I know. I was like, Damn. I thought there was other people that realized that. Damn. Bless his heart, he was the prettiest baby. He was ugly, but I thought he was the prettiest baby. It's like, maybe.

He was then. What did you? Maybe he was.

Just straight up the prettiest baby like you.

Thought he was. Damn, Velma.

But two years later, Velma gave birth again on September third, 1953 to a daughter they named Kim. Now, in the book we are going to link on here, the blood so book, he refers to her as Pam. Because she is referred to as Pam sometimes. Is that a nickname for Kim?

I don't know if it's for Kim. I was like, Why? Why?

It's.

Still about a letter. But I'm thinking, tell me if I'm wrong, in The Great Gatsby, doesn't she call her daughter, Pammy, at one point? I think it was a nickname of Endearment. I don't know if I'm making that up, though. Is it? Because I know her daughter wasn't named Pam, but I feel like she does call her Pammy. Or maybe it's in another book that I read?

I can't remember.

I'm going to look it up. I think back then it might have been like, Oh, you little cutie.

You're not really.

I think. I don't know if I'm just having.

A moment of delusion. Because the blood so book is just about this case, so I don't know why he would refer to her.

Unless she wrote about her in that way.

When she refers to her as Kim. Huh. That's the thing.

It's like-Maybe later in life she started going by Pam?

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't really know.

But I want to look it up because now I'm like, Am I delusional or is that a thing that I've heard before?

I'm sure that it's a thing. I have faith in you.

Thank you. I'll interrupt.

You in a minute.

This is me having faith in you. Wait, hold on. Oh, you found that? Google just filled in the rest for me. No, I don't know.

You're like, No, I'm just kidding. I've never heard that, but I don't doubt you.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I thought I heard that at one point in life. I don't know. Email me if.

I'm right. Let's see. Email me if I'm right. If I'm wrong, don't say anything. Don't email me. If I'm wrong, just shh. But, yeah, she had a daughter named who is referred to as Pam and some other sources. But at the time, the birth of a second child really only brought more joy into what was feeling like a all right life at that point.

I'm like, where did.

It all go wrong? I know. Well, Velma later said, I loved my children, and somewhere in those first two or three years, I learned to love my husband.

Now.

Even their relationship with Velma's parents, Lilly and Murphy, like I said, had been better. Like I was saying before, both Lilly and Murphy loved to be in grandparents. They loved Ronni and Kim.

It sounds like the relationship with Thomas' parents was good too.

They lived together for so long. Was great because they were living together. Yeah. Velma didn't just love being a mother. She was, by all accounts, very good at it. Wow. Ronni, her son later said, I wouldn't say I was a mama's boy, but I was close to it. I really loved my mama to death. A real adoring type of love, which breaks my heart for these kids because I'm like, they saw saw someone different than the rest of the world saw, and I don't want to ever take that from them. You know what I mean? It's like- And you can't. Nobody could take that. -the story is a rough story, and she did some fucked up shit. But I feel for them that they got that different side of her because what a mindfuck.

That is. That's always so interesting to me, too. We've talked about murders before where their family at home had no idea what was going on. Their wife never knew. Their husband never knew. It's so interesting to me how you can hide that part of.

Yourself from other people. Compartmentalize these pieces of you and give love or what you think. I don't even know. I don't know how to classify it because it's like, I believe she loved her kids. From all accounts, they loved her, and she seems to have loved them. It's like, how do you compartmentalize evil and love inside of you? That's an interesting thing.

I don't.

Know, but people do it. People do it all the time.

Well, it's even like Israel, is like he was one of the most terrifying people we've ever spoken about, but loved his dog so much. Because a lot of times you hear like, Oh, sociopath, not capable of love whatsoever. But I don't know how true that is.

Yeah, because he had strange... Well, not every killer is a sociopath. That is true. That's the thing. I think that's one of the issues is it gets to be a blanket thing for everybody. There's so many variables in all of these cases. That's why even entering into this podcast in the beginning, I was unaware how many variables lie within each different case. I went in thinking like, You're a psychopath. Every killer. You kill people, you're a psychopath. That's it. That is indeed the case in many cases, but it's like there's so many other things at work. It's fascinating and horrifying.

It really is. It is an interesting study, though, just the psychology of it all.

Yeah, and I don't know if we'll ever fully.

Grasp it. I think there's more to it than just science.

There's a lot to it. There's a lot to it. This is a perfect example because when you see how cold and callous she is about what she does, it's really hard to reconcile the mother in there. But I'm glad the kids got a loving mother, I suppose, out of it. But they didn't have an easy life, that's for sure. These kids did not have an easy childhood.

Because a lot.

Was going on.

Because things started to get bad with.

Thomas at some point. Yeah, and things started...

It was tough. They unraveled a bit.

But again, like Ronni said, he loved his mother. Actually, on occasions where she had to be separated from her children for any period of time, she said that she would feel physically ill and she would only be able to feel better once again when she was with them. Wow. This became a bigger problem when Ronni entered the first grade and Velma took a job at a textile mill because she was working the overnight shift, so there would always be someone home for the children. Like, Thomas would work the day shift. She would be home. She would go at night. She would work at night and he would come home.

But then that means she probably missed out on a lot of seeing the kids because.

They were at school during the day. Exactly. Now, a few years later, in 1962, Velma began having significant health problems and was eventually diagnosed with fibroid tumors on her uterus. Oh, wow. This caused intense pain. Anybody who has had to deal with that, and heavy bleeding. Velma's doctors said they strongly recommended a hysterectomy to take care of this, and they said it was really the only way to eliminate the problem completely. Her brother, John, later said after she had that hysterectomy, seemed like she was never the same again.

That's.

Interesting. Later, Velma would acknowledge that this period was a major turning point.

In her life. I feel like I've heard that with other women, too, that undergo hysterectomies and.

Change a lot. The hormonal changes are significant. The hormonal changes are vast. After the surgery, the doctors warned her of this, the hormonal changes that could very much be disruptive. But she said lately, There's no way to prepare for it. The shift in your moods and emotions in the weeks and months had followed. She wrote later, I didn't know how to handle my nerves. From my early childhood. When anything upset me and made me nervous and afraid, all of that got worse after my hysterectomy. That's really sad. I think that's part of the issue here is she grew up in such a tumultuous and traumatic childhood that she's already got a lot to contend with. Then you throw hormonal wildness in there that you can't control and can't even conceive of. I can't even imagine what that.

Will do. Right. Back then, they didn't have the medicine that could.

Regulate that. That's the other thing. That's the problem here. There wasn't a lot to do. She found that her emotions were much stronger after the surgery, and she had a lot of intrusive, negative thoughts, and they were being harder and harder to combat. She said, I had hidden my feelings and kept so much inside me that I had built up over the years. As I got older, I still didn't know how to do anything about the anger and the guilt. In the 1960s, like we were just saying, talk therapy, as we know it today, was in its infancy, to say the least. Mental and emotional health care was still a very taboo subject. This was particularly true for the average American housewife who... Oh, yeah. In the mid-1960s, it was a different situation. They were undergoing a identity crisis at this point because there was a huge shift in the meanings and identities of women and mothers in Western culture. Without any professional help or even just like a social network that she could turn to for any of these problems, she attempted to do as she had always done, which is just keep things to herself, push all the negative feelings down, and just hope they go away.

That's.

Not going to happen. Recip for disaster. Before long, her fluctuating moods and instability started taking a toll on her marriage, which by 1965 had already hit a rough patch. Thomas's father had passed away, and he received some minor injuries in a car crash. As a result of the car crash, he had been in pain, so he had started drinking more than usual as a means of escape. Oh, no. This was soon exacerbated by him joining a civic organization in which the members were also heavy drinkers. Belmas said, as Thomas started to drink more, his whole personality changed.

That was probably really triggering for her.

From her childhood. Exactly. Now she's trying to protect the kids, too, from this whole thing.

She's become her mother who she resented so much.

Exactly. Wow. It's a real cycle of sadness in this episode. It really is. Now, already stressed out by her own issues going on and the emotional stuff, the lingering effects of surgery, which she's still trying to get over. That's a massive surgery. Oh, yeah. Velma struggled to understand or even tolerate her husband at this point.

Well, and she had already had to learn to.

Love him. Exactly. So having this happen was like, no. That can unravel something. Their relationship was reduced to little more than her losing her patience and starting arguments with him and him drinking heavily and starting arguments back. Oh, fun. She said, We had so much good in the first years of our marriage that I couldn't accept the difference. That's the other thing. It's such a slap in the face because it's like the beginning was so good, and now it's just shit. It seems like it happened.

Like, boom. It's like, where.

Did we beer off here? Yeah. Now, Velma blamed... One thing we will find out about Velma, she's been through a lot. She said she's been dealt a lot of shitty cards. But Velma is one of those people that has trouble taking any responsibility for her own stuff, too. She only blamed Thomas and his drinking for anything that was going on in that household or that marriage. But she was also going... She had an explosive temper. Yeah, it takes two. You know what I mean? It's not like they were getting along and then he started drinking and everything went south. Obviously, the hysterectomy happened, and that's not her fault. That's her dealing with those hormonal fluctuations. But when she's already going into it with an explosive temper and no patience, it's like this is all a recipe.

For disaster.

Big time. In the mid-1960s, they had fallen on hard times financially. Oh, God. And Velma started writing a number of bad checks that once discovered to be fraudulent, she was told she had to pay the money back.

I always wonder why people think that's a good idea.

They always go to bad checks.

They're always going to get caught.

Always. Don't fuck.

With the bank. It's a legitimate paper trail. Yeah, I don't get that. It's physical paper. You're not going to get away with that.

In the end, it's just going to cost you more than you don't have. Exactly.

Because it's just desperation, usually, and it's get me out of it. It's the mindset that a lot of these people have, which is- Fix it right now. Fix it now, deal with it later. I'm not going to, you know what I mean? I'm not going to try to come up with an actual plan. I'm going to just get it out of my way right now.

It's like the worst possible way to deal with it.

Don't fuck with the bank. Don't do it, man. They're rough. To make matters worse, Thomas had a falling out at the Cola Company and impulsively quit his job.

With nothing lined up.

Yeah, which is bad. Bad. It was several months before he found another job, so there was a big lack of time. So she was desperate. This was desperation time. Finally, and probably more importantly, Velma began having severe back pain in 1964, and it led to a doctor prescribing her pain-releving tablets, which Velma quickly grew addicted to.

God only knows when I was in those.

Back then. I can tell you right now, this pill addiction that she has becomes the basis of a lot of her bad decision making. Really? By 1968, Velma and Thomas's relationship was just deteriorating. She was becoming increasingly reliant on pain medication for basic functioning, and he was retreating deeper into alcoholism. This was just really sad. At the same time, the children are now teenagers, so they become more independent and defiant at that time, and just defiant in a way that normal teenagers can do, especially teenagers in a home that's unstable and that they're dealing with a lot. The whole family dynamic was very strained. By then, Velma's personality had changed in a lot of ways. Like her father, she was becoming much quicker to anger. I didn't read anything that said she was much quicker to anger with the children. It was Thomas. She said anything that my husband would do to agitate me, she said the slightest inconvenience or the slightest anything she perceived as a slight or annoying, she would lose her mind. I guess the children would try to de-escalate the situations a lot and try to separate them. Wow. Ronnie, her son said she wanted to stay and fight and yell.

She was very combative. That's even him saying this was a different person. This was somebody who wanted to just fight. Now, throughout the later part of the 1960s, Belma had done her best to try to fix things. She tried to get her Thomas into a rehab program. She actually checked him into one for drinking. What about you, girl? Well, that's the thing. She paid virtually no attention to her own physical and mental health. She was just, which you don't know what that with the thought process there was, if she was in denial thinking she didn't have the issue, or if she was just like, I'm going to suck it up and deal with it, but let's get him fixed. I don't know which one that was. Who knows? I'm not Velma. No. But she really ignored her.

Own shit. Well, and it seems like she already resented him so much and had so much against him that it's one of those things where it's like, He's the.

Problem, not me. Exactly. She has a nasty habit of blaming everybody else. It seems like this is one of those things where Velma just said, Well, he's the fucking problem.

Right. Like, once he's.

Better, I'll be fine. Yeah, everything.

Will be fine. He's the problem. I'm sure, and this is just me guessing, but she would probably get irritated with him, and that would lead her to using more in her.

Own addiction. Exactly. Because it was the stress and the.

Frustration, all that. So maybe she figured if I get him taken.

Care of then I won't have to be so annoyed all the time. Then I won't have to do that. Then I won't have to do that. Yeah. Now, by 1968, the stress and anxiety she'd been pushing down for decades did finally come up. It came to head. Oh, no. She collapsed in her kitchen, where the last thing she remembered was getting up to make breakfast for the kids. Wow. Thomas was too drunk to help her in this situation. Oh, no. It was Ronnie, her son, who had to call his grandfather, Murphy. Oh, wow. And, Murphy drove Velma to the hospital. This is what I mean with, Lillian Murphy really- Turned around. -turned around and became the lifeline here.

But then they saw, Look what happened.

Look what's happened because of everything that's...

They're in the same situation that we've been in, and it's worse.

Yeah, it's such.

A cycle. Generational trauma is wild. It is.

It's horrifying. Now, she ended up being admitted for what she would later be told was a nervous breakdown. Wow. Velma remained in the hospital for observation and treatment for about a week, and then she was discharged with a prescription for tranquilizers and a strong recommendation that she seek mental health treatment and get professional help with her marital issues as well. Getting out of the hospital, she didn't take any of that advice. Basically, the marriage just continued to disintegrate. She just kept on keeping on. She turned to the tranquilizers now, relying on them to make life more bearable. She said, I found I could cope better if I took it. Then not just one. I knew that two would be better than one. I could feel that. Now, as 1968 came to a close, there wasn't much of a relationship between Velma and Thomas left. He was really losing a battle with alcoholism. It had consumed him so much that he ended up losing his job. He was unemployed for much of that year, and that just added more stress financially. Although he would try and occasionally get better, he would go short periods without drinking.

It really never lasted long, and he would fall right back into it. It takes your whole life away. I can't imagine. I really can't. The more Thomas drank, the stranger his behavior became. According to Jerry Blood, the book I was talking about before, he said at times he would sit in the car in the carport drunk, revving the engine at full speed, sometimes until the car ran out of gas. Strange. When Velma or one of the kids would try to intervene, he would become physically or verbally abusive until passing out inside the house. It's just awful. It's just like an awful. It's bleak. Now, by the winter of 1969, Thomas had managed to find work at the mill. The mill was his first job that he had the one he fucking hated.

And he had to go back to it.

In this shape. At first, Velma was like, You know what? Maybe after so long and after being unemployed for so long, maybe this is what's going to do it. It's going to snap him into a routine. He's going to have to go to work. He's going to have to get it together. But she said having to go back to the mill was a real blow to his pride, and he seemed to drink even more. Now, as that got worse, so did the fights that they seemed to have every single night. One evening in March, Thomas came home drunk and the inevitable fight happened, and Velma was telling her husband that she couldn't put up with her drinking and this fighting anymore. Thomas passed out on the couch and Velma packed a suitcase for herself and for Kim, her daughter, and they went to stay with her parents. Well, Ronni, who is now almost an adult at this point, stayed behind because he told his mother someone needs to take care of dad.

Oh, my God. Their whole family just got fractured.

It's like these kids-.

Too much responsibility.

-so much responsibility. It's like Ronni just especially, because we don't find out a lot about Kim, but I'm sure she was the same way, but we see that.

Ronni.

Just loved his parents. You can tell that he just wanted to.

Be a good son. And wanted them to be better, wanted to help.

Them be better. He just wanted to take care of them. He wanted to be a good son. That's so sad. Looks at his mom as like, Someone needs to take care of dad. I will stay here to take care of him.

It's like, You shouldn't have to take care of your parents.

I know. It just breaks my heart. At that young of an age. It really breaks my heart, but what a good son. When Thomas came to the next morning, Ronni told him about the whole thing. He was like, Yeah, do you remember any of this? He was like, Mom left and is fully intending on divorcing you. You've really done it this time. You fucked up. Ronnie blamed his father's drinking because he was like, This is your fault. Thomas blamed Velma's pill addiction, and he was nonetheless remorseful, though. He was like, I don't want this to happen. This shouldn't be what ends everything. He told his son, I want to get sober. I want to bring this family back together. He said like it was when you were younger, like I wanted to be like that. Later that afternoon, Ronnie told his mother this, what his father had said, and everybody was very hopeful at this moment. So, Velma came home.

That's like the worst.

I know, the hope. For a few days, there was an uneasy chillness, peace in.

The house. But everybody was probably so trepidacious.

Yeah, and Thomas managed to make it about a week without drinking, and Velma did her best to take her pills as directed. But then it was just too late. Too much damage had been done to the relationship. Honestly, neither of them knew how to fix it, and neither of them knew if they really wanted to fix it at this point. After a couple of weeks, things in the house, unfortunately, returned right to the way they were before Velma left. It was pretty clear to everybody that it was clear to her that Thomas wasn't going to change. Thomas knew she wasn't going to change, and that marriage was over. Damn. Now, several weeks later, on the weekend of April 19th, Ronni and Kim decided to go... They needed to get away from their parents' endless fighting and this whole thing that had turned into. They went to stay with Lilly and Murphy. Their grandparents for the weekend.

What? They're like, We need to get away from that, so we're going to go to Lillian Murphy. We're super.

Chill now. Exactly. I'm like, Damn. You should have known. But Velma was home alone that morning when Thomas stumbled in after getting off of work, clearly drunk. They exchanged like very... At this point, they were barely speaking to each other if they weren't fighting. They're like roommates. They were like, just hello. Thomas sat down on the couch and lit a cigarette, but then he started passing out. The lit cigarette was still in his mouth, and Velma noticed that it fell out of his mouth and rolled down his shirt. She ran to grab it before it burned a hole in him. She basically yelled at him and was like, You know what? You're burning your... What are you doing? She literally said, Burn yourself up for all I care. Like, Jesus Christ. She had enough. When she yelled this, Thomas just woke up and he got off the couch and went into the bedroom where he lay down on the bed and went back to passing out. Now, Velma was fucking frustrated at this point, so she left the house, went to her parents' house and picked her mother up to take her out shopping for the afternoon.

Later that afternoon, she came back to her house and she came in to find it filled with thick smoke.

Oh, no.

Couldn't find her husband, so she ran outside just as Thomas's sister, Francis, happened to be driving by the house and Valmo was shouting for her to call the fire department. The volunteer fire squad arrived minutes later, made their way through the house, and they hadn't been in there for more than a minute or two when they came out to get a stretcher. They came back out and they were carrying Thomas on a stretcher. Velma was begging them to tell her what the fuck happened, and she said, I kept begging, but they wouldn't tell me anything. Inside, I knew he was already dead. Oh, God. Now, later that day, the fire inspector told Velma that Thomas had died from smoke inhalation. It appeared as though he had fallen asleep in bed with a lit cigarette, but at some point he must have woken up because it looked like he had tried to stomp on the rug trying to put the fire out. According to the investigator, there was very little damage from the fire, only a small part of the mattress and the pile of clothes on the floor, and the floor underneath appeared to be ruined.

But otherwise, everything was pretty much unharmed. The official cause of death was listed as smoking in bed when the case was closed. They think he was really drunk, so he couldn't get.

Out of the house. Right. What a way to go.

Thomas's death was a tragedy, and it hit the family, the children, and Velma really hard. No matter what, this was not the outcome anyone was looking for, obviously. Now, in the months after Thomas' death, Velma came to rely even more on the tranquilizers to get her through the day. The life insurance policy on Thomas barely covered the funeral or any of the other costs associated with his death. That meant that Velma didn't have the luxury of taking any moment off from work to grieve. Go through any of it. He was still her husband. As much as that whole relationship had disintegrated and it was shit, that's the father of your children. You were still living with him. You hadn't divorced yet.

Yeah, there's always some love.

There, I'm sure. Yeah, there's something there. That's just a shock. Yeah. And so, Velma pushed herself to stay focused on work, which was at Belk's Department Store. Okay. She had been employed there for several years, and it gave her something to focus on. It filled her days up. She was just really moving forward. She also liked it because she could take rare moments aside to chat with her friend, Pauline Barfield, who worked in the store next to Velma's. They had known each other for a while. They'd become very close, like Velma's closest friend, very much her confidant and had on several occasions, she had introduced Velma to her husband, Jennings. They were just best friends. She told her everything. Now, just a few months after Thomas' death, Velma was dealt another blow when she received news that Pauline had died unexpectedly from a cerebral hemorrhage. Holy shit.

It was a shock. A shock. Oh, my God. Yeah. It was even more of a shock because one of the things that they always talked about was that Pauline's husband, Jennings, had been disabled by emphysema and diabetes. They honestly thought he was the one that most likely pass away first. This was a real shock. It was probably equally surprising when Velma found herself in a full-blown relationship with Jennings.

I was going to ask that because the bar field of it all.

Yeah. What?

That happens, though. I've heard of that more often, like a lot. I've heard about it a lot.

I don't understand it.

I think it's some.

Weird grief tie. Yeah, I would haunt the shit out.

Of any.

Of my friends. No, retweet.

I would poltergeist.

That shit all the way up. I'd ruin your fucking life.

Oh, mark my words.

Yeah. Oh, I'd go through. I mean, that's right. It's just black and white for me. I'll ruin.

Your fucking life. Even if it's not my best friend, you can't move on.

Sorry. Yeah. I'll become a demon. Sorry. I'll become a demon specifically so I can ruin your life.

Yeah, exactly.

So just know that. But isn't that strange? It is. It's a strange phenomenon that happens.

I told a story like that recently. I feel like I can't put my finger on exactly who it was, but I have heard of that multiple times. Didn't it.

Happen with Stevie Nicks?

Yes.

It did. Didn't she?

It's like a weird strange- Then she had to come to Jesus, my girly.

But that shows like it's a strange phenomenon.

It is. It really is. I think a lot.

Of it is tied up in grief. Some typological... 100% it has to do with... Because grief will fuck you up. Grief changes a lot of things.

Well, and if you think about it, you have a lot in common with your best friends. I'm sure there are attributes that bring your partner that reminds the partner who's still alive of the partner that passed, and that brings you even closer.

Yeah. I mean, I don't understand it, but I'm not going to say that I could understand it because thankfully, knock-knocks, I've never been in that position to understand that. Again, we'd haunt them. Yeah, and I would turn into a demon, remember? I won't even be human anymore. No, you're a demon. Demote and Elena. We used to call him that. But, yeah.

He's not in good health, though. I'm like, Belby, you're setting yourself up for some more heartbreak here.

Yeah, I don't think this is a great move. Ino, not at all. Spoiler alert. It's not. Honestly, this was just a couple of months after Pauline's death they begin.

A relationship. That's usually what you hear.

Like a couple of months. Yeah, it's always like, Right then. I don't get it, man, but you do you. But she found herself liking the attention. It gave her something else to focus on besides, like we were just saying, the constant death in her life and the addiction that's surrounded everything. She later wrote, The kids, they didn't need me the way they had when they were young. I was grateful that he wanted to take me out. It made me feel good. That's sad.

Yeah, of course. Absolutely.

But after dating only a few months, Jennings surprised Velma again at one evening at dinner. He asked her to marry him. This was only after dating a few months and after his wife has just died. I don't.

Think that's a good idea. I think that's very impulsive. I think it's very impulsive. I think any therapist would be like, I think we should talk to you for a minute. You should probably take.

A minute. A little longer. Well, and shessaid, I agreed to marry Jennings Barfield, even though I wasn't in love with him. Which it's like stop marrying people you're not in love with. You already did that. You've got to stop doing that.

You only marry people.

You really, really, really love. But what she said was, I knew that Jennings didn't drink and that he wouldn't treat me bad. I just wanted someone to be with me and to talk with me. I wanted someone so badly to fill the emptiness in my life.

Wow.

That's gut-wrenching. So fucking sad. Because that's all anybody wants. But you don't have to settle for that. Is somebody to talk to you and comfort you and accept you and just be a nice person.

But add.

Love into it. But you don't have to settle, man.

It's so much more magical.

There's a lot going on with Velma. There's a lot going on with Velma. It's a sad story. It is. But my God, does she turn and callous and- I'm waiting for it. Yeah. On August 23rd, 1970, a little over a year after the death of Thomas Burke, Velma married Jennings Barfields, but very little changed. She said, I was as unhappy married as I had been alone. Of course you are. You don't love him. Right. She found also that Jennings' health problems were quite a bit more complicated than Velma had realized and required a high level of care and attention.

Diabetes alone is a lot to manage. Diabetes mixed.

With emphysema. She was illiquid to provide these things. As a result of the increased stress, she began relying more on Valium to get through the day. Valium. It didn't take long for Velma to realize Jennings' health problems while certainly not his fault, were at least partially worsened by his refusal to follow any doctor's orders to make any life improvements. Oh, no. He had bad emphysema, but he wouldn't quit smoking. The same was true of his diabetes. He wouldn't change his diet or exercise. The only things worse for Velma was he said, The more obstinate he became, the more medicine I took, the more exasperated I grew, the more desperate. Wolf. These are the things, though, where it's like, Velma, you're just blaming everyone else. You took the action here. You married this man you don't love. You knew he had health problems. Right. Now you're blaming his health problems on your stuff. You're blaming your stuff on his health problems when you knew what you were entering into. You knew it. Pauline told you. You were best friends. You were confident. She told you what he needed. You went into this knowing he was going to have a lot of things that he needed.

You probably knew that he was pretty stubborn and he wasn't going to change shit because I'm sure Pauline told you that shit. You're best friends. That's what you tell your best friends.

Hundred %. It's like, and you married him knowing you.

Didn't love him. I think that's the root of the whole issue. You've been down this road before. Because if you loved him, these things wouldn't.

Be as big of a deal. If you loved him, you could sink your heels in and you'd be like, Let's go. Right. But you didn't love him. So this didn't hit the same. It's like, but you're not recognizing that you're doing this shit to yourself.

I can't imagine walking down the aisle to a man that I didn't love.

No.

To know, because you hear that. People are like, Oh, on my wedding day. I knew it. Right before I walked in the aisle, I was like, Am I doing the right thing?

Why did you go.

Through.

All of that? Yeah. It's a lot. Now, Velma had been married to Jennings for less than a year, and she already felt more trapped than she ever had before. To make matters worse, Robbie had graduated from high school that spring and began working at the Cola Company, where his father was once employed. But in the fall, he was going off to the University of South Carolina. Which are good for these kids for getting into college and shit. Good on you for all the shit that was going on in your lives. Good job. That's huge. But is going to lose one of the few constant sources of happiness and support that she had left in her life. This is horrible. She was already worried about Ronnie graduating, going to college, but then he was drafted into the army a few months later with plans to be sent to Vietnam during one of the biggest troop surges. Oh, my God. Now, by the winter of 1971, life had become unbearable. Yeah, just suffocating for Velma, who was honestly in this awful cycle of depression, addiction, hopelessness, and also self-sabotage that she was just constantly cycling through. She was full of regret.

She was now very resentful of Jennings. That's not fair. She felt that he trapped her in the marriage that she didn't.

Really want. Gurley, pop, you said yes.

Yeah, and then those feelings turned darker.

Oh, no.

Not Jennings. Now, all the death, abuse, depression, addiction, disappointment she had cycled through, she found herself wishing Jennings was dead.

She's going to kill her best friend's husband after she married him months after she died?

Yeah. She was really wanting to be free of what she considered to be a burden.

There's this thing. It's called divorce.

Yeah, you know of it. You just go for it, girl.

I know it can be messy, but you know what is messier?

A murder. You know what? Everything's messy at this point. Let's Seriously. Now, in late March of 1971, fueled by anger and whatever else she was dealing with, Velma bought a bottle of arsenic poison.

Where do you buy arsenic?

I always wonder that. I'm like, Where did you're just like a bottle with a skull and cross bones on it at the.

Grocery store and you're like, I'm.

Going to grab this.

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Who?

She had said she wanted to make him sick as punishment for what he put her through.

He already is sick, girlfriend.

Super sick. She said, Then he'll be sorry he's caused me so much trouble and he won't do it again. He'll start acting right and he won't bother me anymore. Do you see the little switch?

That's sadistic.

Yeah. Wow. Because it's like, up until this point, you're like, Fuck, Valma. What a sad life. And like, Damn, I'm feeling bad for you. Then at this point, you're like, Oh.

Look at that.

Damn, Shorty. Look at that. I don't feel that at all anymore.

No, I don't. This man? This man has had chronic.

Health problems- He just lost.

His wife. -and lost his wife, your best friend. Yeah. That is beyond.

Now, what's worse is, and maybe she didn't know this or maybe she didn't care. Maybe she knew and she didn't care. But Jennings had come to the same conclusion.

He was going to kill her. He wasn't going to kill her. Oh, my God.

I was like, What? That their marriage had been an impulsive mistake and that it had been done out of grief. Right. He came to that. He was like, You know what? What are we doing here? In fact, just days before his death, Jennings had contacted his lawyer to discuss a divorce. What the fuck? He was a devout Christian, and he cared very much about how he was perceived by others. He had become embarrassed by Velma's... He had become embarrassed by Velma's... What her addiction was doing to her, her erratic behavior, and had certainly become subject of gossip around town at this point. He was like, She doesn't want to take care of me. She doesn't really love me. I can see this. I'm like, Why am I- Probably bickering. He's basically sitting there going, Why am I making her take care of me when she doesn't love me?

Yeah, she's not happy. I'm not happy.

What are we doing? Let's move on.

He went about this the rational way. The smart way.

Because he was like, You know what? Let's separate and we'll move on with our lives. It'll be fine. We did this impulsive thing. Oops, let's move on. Yeah, that's great. Unfortunately for Jennings, his relationship came too late because on the afternoon of March 21st, Velma put the poison in Jennings's food. She put a lot of poison in people's food. Really? She didn't do the slow arsenic poisoning that you hear about. The arsenic took effect almost immediately. It's unclear whether she felt... I mean, it's pretty clear to me, but it's unclear whether she felt guilty or was trying to cover her tracks. But when it became apparent that Jennings couldn't breathe, she rushed him to Cape Fair Hospital. But doctors there weren't hopeful that he would make it through the night. They were correct because Jennings-Barfield died the following morning from heart failure.

But did they think it was because of the emphysema?

That's the thing. She picked people who this would not be shocking that.

They died. They wouldn't look into it.

They wouldn't look into it. The autopsy or anything. And, arsenic poisoning is a very tough one to... Unless you are getting an autopsy because you think something happened, then you're not going to know. I mean, one of the things that I read about was you can smell garlic breath. Yeah, I read that before too. That's an arsenic thing. There's some other things, like we'll get into it. I don't know what arsenic that Velma was utilizing here, but upon further research, there's trivalent arsenic is the worst kind.

I didn't realize that there was even different kinds.

Yes. Trivalic arsenic has the added harshness of having a corrosive effect. It will leave oral sores in someone's mouth as well, and it will cause GI bleeding and dysphagia, which is when somebody has trouble swallowing. Yeah. Trivalent, basically, the reason it's called that it has to do with the molecular structure of the arsenic molecule itself. Trivalent means there's three valence electrons. I'm going back to organic chemistry. Dominated me, but I actually liked chemistry. That's a wild thought. It means there's three valence electrons. Valence electrons are the electrons on the outermost shell of an atom. These electrons take part in a chemical reaction that will follow. They can form a chemical bond with another atom to make this happen. Okay. Trivalent atoms can form three covalent bonds, which is just sharing electrons between atoms to form electron pairs. They do this so they can be more stable. The reaction becomes more stable. It does more damage. Now, arcinic poisoning, especially in such a large and focused dosage like Valmo is using on her victims, is fucking violent. This is not... It's an awful death. This isn't, Oh, no, I don't feel well, and then you pass out.

It's hours, sometimes days of excruciating pain and agony. Oh, man. It is awful. You will be vomiting, extreme stomach pain to the point of just not even being able to breathe. You will be vomiting uncontrollably, diarrhea. You will have- Oh, my God. It's just agony. She's causing and watching these people in the worst pain you can possibly imagine. It's fucking awful because it causes GI bleeding and shit. It makes you really fucked up.

Does she ever say why.

She.

Picked that? Like, why she wanted to poison? No. I know women are more likely to poison by statistics.

I think some of it is probably because she wouldn't be caught. Yeah. She picked people who they weren't going to probably ask for an autopsy because it'll eventually cause cardiac arrest because your body goes into shock. Right. Because there's so much happening to your body. It's that bad that your body literally goes into shock and you have a heart attack and die. It's like a heart attack. That's how they all died. Their bodies went through fucking horror in front of her-.

To take a.

Deep breath. -and then their bodies all went into such shock that they all had a heart attack and died. Then most of them are older, as we'll see, so they don't question it.

Did she do that with everybody? Give them a huge amount? Mm-hmm.

Really? Oh, because she like- She wanted it quick. -at one point she said she watched it and she felt nothing. Wow. Like, she watched them go through the after effects and felt nothing. Wow. So she's a real monster. That is. She's a real monster. Un believable.

Okay, keep going.

Now, despite having caused Jennings-Barfield's death, Velma was depressed still because she's alone now again.

Do you think any part of her felt guilty?

No, I think to me, I don't think she feels guilty. I think she just realizes that she puts herself back to square one, and then she's depressed again. Now, as she's done so many times before, she turned more to her addictions to dull these difficult emotions. She had this thing she would do where she would try to soothe her guilt by telling herself, Well, he was in poor health anyways. She just speeded it along. She would tell herself that a lot like, Oh, that person was going to die anyway, so who cares if they went out in excruciating pain, shitting, and throwing up all over themselves? That's what was going to happen anyways, right? Wow. No, I don't think that was going to happen, but thank you. Following her second husband's death, she once again found herself, shockingly, in financial difficulties because she didn't plan for that. She rented out the house she had been living in with Jennings, and she and Kim moved back into the home she and the kids lived in when she was still with Thomas, the one with the fire. It had been twice damaged by fire, but she later said, I couldn't stand being back in that house.

I redecorated and bought new furniture. I tried, but I just couldn't feel good in it. Being in that house that Thomas had built made me think I was drowning and didn't know how to swim. Now, things only got worse as came to a close because Ronnie had tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to get a deferment for his enlistment. Kim's impending graduation meant that one more of her constant companions was going to be taken away. The stress of everything collapsing around her caused Velma to lean much harder into her addictions. By the end of the year, she experienced another drug overdose. Oh, another one? Yeah, she had already had a couple. I don't know when they were, so I didn't want to name them because they happened at different periods. But this one she claimed was she later recognized as a half-hearted attempt to end her own life. Wow. Eventually, the drugs and depression began affecting her performance at work, and she was showing up late constantly and just not showing up at all. After seven years as one of the more reliable employees at Belx Department Store, her boss had to fire her in December of 1971.

Wow. Now, completely depressed and unemployed, she entered 1972 living off what little insurance money she got from Jennings death. And running out of money, Felma moved in with her parents in early 1972, and this was just as her father, Murphy's health had begun to decline due to respiratory problems. Oh, man. Later, it was diagnosed as lung cancer. Now, by the time it was diagnosed, his cancer was too advanced to treat. He was checked into the hospital with no plans for a discharge. He was basically in hospice.

That's really sad.

Now, during this time, Velma found to work at a knitting plant in nearby Rayford just to help her mother with the bills. She was able to maintain that employment for a little over two months. Then her father died in May, and it sent her hurdling back into her bad habits. By January 1973, Velma had now overdosed twice in as many months and had begun stealing any pills she could find in her neighbor's houses in anybody's medicine cabinets. She was really in a place where she needed a lot of help. It was basically to stave off withdrawal at this point. Now, she couldn't function without it, and she also couldn't maintain employment because of it.

Isn't it crazy how you can't function with it, and then it becomes such a big part of your life that you can't function without it?

Yeah, it becomes what feels like a never ending cycle that you can't get off. If you don't get the help. Just an escalator that just keeps going round and round.

It's just so crazy how your body is meant to function, obviously, without drugs most of the time. But then you can become so dependent on them.

That you have to have them.

It's such a weird thing to reconcile in.

Your brain. It's really scary. But she ended up kept living with her mom after her dad passed away, partially to help her mom just to be there for her, but also she didn't really have any other option. Now, her father, I guess, ended up later in life, acting like a buffer between her and her mom. Her mom were fine. Like, her mom wasn't abusive or anything like that. They just didn't get along. But I think her and Lilly just didn't get along that much.

They butted heads. Well, she had resented her even.

From a child. I think that's what it is because it sounds like Lilly wasn't really doing anything outwardly wrong or anything. I think she just rubbed Velma the wrong way. Velma doesn't seem to have a whole lot of patience, as we can see.

It's very like Emily Gilmore, Laura Lye. But when you watch the.

Series back, a lot of the times you're like, She's really not doing that. I feel like there's times when you're like, Fuck you, Emily.

Yeah, 100 %.

I think that's what Lilly is. It's like this time she's like, All right, Lilly. But most of the time you're like, I think you just don't.

I think you're being a triple child.

Now, it got worse. Velma said, Mama like to sit and talk about the old days when we were kids. She was getting old, and maybe that's why she kept talking like that. That pissed her off.

She's not going to kill her.

Mom, is she? For whatever reason, her mother's nostalgia, what she saw is her complete disregard for the unpleasant memories of her childhood. She didn't want to talk about it. She was like, You're only focusing on the nice things. Which is like, she's old. So I think that's just let her have that. -she lost her husband. I don't know. I don't know. I was going to say I can't speak for it, so I'm not going to.

As in if you're an abused child and.

Somebody's only.

Focusing on the wonderful times, I'd be like, Yeah, get your.

Fucking face on the lala left. I was going to say I went to say, I don't know, just let her hang out and talk about the nice things if it makes her happy, which from my point of view, I look at it that way. But I'm not an abused child, so I can't understand the trauma that comes along with that and how angry you would be.

I would say try your best to let her do that, but I can see where it's bigger than you.

Yeah, it's hard. You got... Sometimes every once in a while, I have to make sure I put myself in a different position instead of looking at it only from.

My.

Happy position over here. You know what I mean? I didn't have that ceaseless, unending trauma growing up, so it's like an abuse and shit like that. I can sit here and say that.

Because I can't.

Imagine sitting with like...

I mean, my mom is a single mom, but I can't imagine if my stepdad was still a part of my life and hearing him be like, But the good times. Sometimes I'd.

Be like, You shut the fuck up, Kyle. You'd be like, Really? Shut the fuck up, Kyle. His name is not Kyle. But so I can understand that. I can see it. Because at first when I read it, I was like, Girl. It's also, I think, because Velma is a fucking serial killer that I'm.

Like, Fuck you, Velma. Your first thing is to disagree with her, of course.

But there's times when you're like, All right, I guess. No, I see this. Traumatized child, I suppose. But yeah, it pissed her off. She was not happy with it.

I could.

Definitely see that. And her anxieties were further inflamed by the fact that Kim now graduated from high school and out of the house was engaged to be married.

Oh, man. Oh, wow.

The.

Way that just came full circle.

Shit. Yeah, exactly. And she's out of money at this point. She can't pay for any wedding. She can't help with any of that. And Valmo went to the bank and took out a loan. Okay. And she used her mother's house as collateral.

Unbeknownst to Lilly?

Yeah. Yeah. She told the bank that Lilly was too ill to come and fill out the paperwork herself, and they just let her. Banks were wily back then.

That's the thing. You don't fuck with the bank, but sometimes you do fucks with the bank, and they're like.

Yeah, it's fine. Sometimes the banks fuck with you. But in early December 1974, notices began arriving from the bank addressed to Lilly, and they were demanding payment on a loan that Belma had taken out on her behalf. Wow. Lilly is older now, and she's assuming, Oh, well, the bank made a mistake, so she's just throwing them out, not even thinking about it. Just do-do-do. But Belma was seeing the notices, and she's panicking, and she's sure her mom's going to find out then she's going to be caught. Then she's not going to know what to do. One day in mid-December, Velma had gone to the pharmacy to pick up her prescription and purchased another bottle of arsenic before leaving the store. She had killed her own mother. She said, I don't remember thinking about what I would do next, but somewhere inside me, I must have already conceived of the plan. I had done it once, even though I had blotted that from my conscious memory. Later, Velma would claim that she had only planned, and this is her constant claim, constant. Every time she does this, she claims this. I'm like, Girl, we don't believe you.

What did she say? Velma would claim that she'd only planned to make her mother sick for a while, just long enough to give her time to find a job and pay back the loan and stop the notices from coming. No. Whatever the plan had really been, it didn't happen that way. Velma poisoned her food and not long after she ate it, Lilly began uncontrollably vomiting, complained of agonizing stomach pains. Velma called her mother's doctor, but her doctor assumed that she had the flu, which was going around at the time. He declined to see her and was like, Oh, I'll just call her in a prescription. It's okay. Now, the medicine obviously didn't help her mother because she did not have the flu. Right. She called her brother, Oliver, and they both arranged for an ambulance to bring Lilly to the hospital. While Lilly was in ICU, Velma kept repeating to everyone that the doctor told her there were a lot of people dealing with this illness right now. That's what it was. She just had to convince herself that what she had done to her mother was not what was.

Causing this illness. It was secondary.

Now, later that afternoon, her mother died of a heart attack because her body went into shock.

From.

Arsenic. Yeah. She later said that she kept repeating to herself, Mama died because of her heart trouble. It had nothing to do with the poison.

Did she even have heart trouble previously? No.

Now, since the death of Thomas Berk in 1969, Velma had to send a deeper into this addiction that she was living in until her entire life was revolving around the pills she took just to get through the day. Before she knew it, the addiction had become a trap in which she was willing to do anything to avoid the panic of being cut off from it. Following her mother's death, mother's murder, Velma moved in with her daughter Kim and her husband, her new husband. But her drug abuse immediately caused problems. In an effort to help their mother, Kim and Ronni would regularly round up all the pills and flush them down the toilet. But Velma always found a way to get more. One day while she was cleaning out some things at her mother's house, she found a checkbook from an old account she had opened when Jennings was still alive. So she had no money, and so she remembered the checkbook and wrote a bad check to the pharmacy, knowing but really not caring that she was going to be caught.

Because she was using it to.

Get pills. Yeah, and it was a bad check. Just days after writing the check, two sheriffs deputies showed up at her door to discuss the bad check. At first, they went easy on her and were like, Listen, if you just repay the money, we're not going to cause you any trouble. But she didn't have the money to pay. Velma made another half-hearted attempt to take her own life by overdosing on pills again, but she woke up in the hospital later that day. Her collarbone actually broke from the fall that she took when she passed out. Oh, wow. It was while she was in the hospital that the two sheriff's deputies returned. This time they had a warrant for her arrest. She had no options to pay back the money, so she had to plead guilty and was sentenced to six months at North Carolina's Correction Center for Women in Raleigh. While the time in jail seems like it would have been a great opportunity for Velma to get sober.

There's more in jail than there is on the streets.

You'd think. But instead, she spent most of her time just looking for thinking about what she was going to do when she came out. After receiving an early release for good behavior after serving four months of the sentence, she stole a check from her son-in-law's checkbook the minute she got home and went straight to the pharmacy and filled the prescription. Wow. Not long after, Kim learned she was pregnant. With the baby on the way, she was like, There's not enough room in this house for all.

Of us. I can't have a baby around all this dysfunction. I can't imagine what was going through her head.

Exactly. She was.

Like, No. I feel.

So bad for Kim. I know.

That's the thing. To have to, for lack of a better term, kick.

Your mother out. Yeah, to have to be like, We can't. I need to focus on my family. Oh, that's really sad. It happens to Ronni, too. Oh, God. She found a new arrangement with an elderly neighbor, and she was going to live with her. Oh, fuck. She was going to provide limited in-home care in exchange for a room and board. Girl, you.

Can't even care for yourself, and you're going to care for this elderly person.

Now, at first, this seemed like an ideal job to her, but then it became clear to her that the woman's needs were far greater than what she could meet. After four months, she was moved this woman, this elderly woman, thankfully for her, was moved to a long-term care facility, which put Velma out of a job and out of a home. But unfortunately, for her, there is no shortage of elderly people in need of care. So she found herself in a new living care position with an elderly couple named Montgomery and Dolly Edwards.

Shut your face right now.

I know the cutest names.

Montgomery and Dolly.

I love them forever.

They were made to find each other.

Yeah, they were.

They were. Right in November 1975, Dolly Edwards had decided she wanted to bring her husband, Montgomery, home from the hospital. Okay. But they were older. She had neither the energy nor the strength to meet the demands of his care. It was the county nurse who had recommended Velma to Dolly. Girl, bye. She had met her a few months earlier when Velma was hired to care for her elderly sister, that other person.

Okay.

After just one brief conversation, Dolly was like, Sounds good to me. She offered the position to Velma, and she would get room and board and also would get a salary of $75 a week. Now, like so many of the relationships in her life, it didn't take long before she was just fucking annoyed by these people. That's the thing with Velma. It's like, get the fuck over yourself.

Yeah, what is wrong.

With you? Don't be around people if you don't like them. But she has to because she has to use them. Don't take care of people if you don't like them. Jesus These are older people. They're just living their lives.

Yeah, but they have things that.

She wants. She came to resent them.

How do you resent Montgomery and Dawson?

Exactly. Fuck you, Velma. She was very quick to become irritated and hated the way, which this annoys me, hated the way that Dolly always hovered around her when she was tending to Montgomery's needs and criticizing the way she did things.

Bitch, you better bet that I'm going to criticize the way you're taking care of my man.

Well, that's that. I'm like, You think Dolly is not going to give a fuck what you're doing to Montgomery over there? He just got.

Out of the hospital also.

She wants to make sure that he can stay home. She wants to make sure that he can stay home. Yeah. Fuck you, Melda. Are you kidding me? I will fucking micromanage what you do to my elderly husband. Absolutely.

Fuck that shit.

That's mine. That's love. I heard that. That's the thing. I'm like, she doesn't understand that. She doesn't understand that love, that devotion, that caring. Because she never was with a man that she loved.

She.

Doesn't get it. So she doesn't understand why Dolly has to sit there and see everything she's doing. That's wild. Then she claims that she says, At times I felt I saw flashbacks as if I'd gone back home again. She acted like my mother, always telling me what to do and never pleased with the way I did things. It's like, Well, no, that's- Grow up. Because that's her guy. But then even Ronnie would later say that he overheard several arguments between his mother and Dolly that reminded him very much of the arguments she would have with Lilly before she died. Oh, wow. I'm like, I think this is Velma's problem. Yeah. Velma also greatly disliked the way Dolly talked about her nephew, Stewart Taylor. Velma had met Stewart a few times while she was working for the Edwards, and he always seemed like a perfectly nice guy to Velma. But he's not. Which I was like, Velma, you're not one to have. Your taste is not killing it. Right now, you don't know what love is. I don't think you are the end all be all of who's a good guy. But Dolly always made a point of speaking very ill of him, criticizing him for his drinking.

But it's her fucking family.

She knows. Also, I'm sorry, you've seen what somebody who prioritizes that over everything. That doesn't.

Work for you. I was going to say you.

Didn't like it. Now, that fall, Stewart asked Velma if she would like to have dinner with him, and she happily agreed. Oh, man. You're hearing what he's like, dude. This is what I mean. I'm like, come on.

But it's one of those things where it's such a cycle for her because she went after Thomas after her parents disapproved. Look what happened.

Now this woman-.

Now Dolly's like, This guy's bad. -who's like her mom, disapproves of this guy. Exactly. She's one of those people where you disapprove and it makes her go after.

It harder. She's living the same lives. Moving in with Dolly in Montgomery, Dolly, she says, reminds her of her mother, and then she's going against her. Now, Stewart and Velma went out a couple of times a week for about six weeks until he stopped coming by the house completely out of nowhere.

Oh, he ghosted her?

Yeah. When Velma mentioned it, Dolly said, Stewart and his wife had reconciled, and we're hoping to get back together. Velma was disappointed, but was like, Whatever. Moving on. Now, by January 1977, Montgomery had passed away at the end of the month.

So now Velma-circumstances? Yes.

Okay. Now, Velma was left alone with Dolly in the house. Without Montgomery to care for, Dolly found new chores and responsibilities for Velma because she was like, You still want to be paid. You still want somewhere to live. Which Velma interpreted as new excuses for Dolly to criticize her.

It's like, Girl, she's putting a fucking roof over your head and money in your pocket.

Velma said, Over the last few months, the pressure had built up so much that every time Mrs. Edwards started to complain, I wanted to scream at her. Itried to hurt her. I began to hate Mrs. Edwards. I wanted to hurt her in some way. Then leave. That's not normal. No, of course, it's not. That's not normal thought patterns. I want to hurt people? I want to hurt this elderly woman.

That's.

Terrifying. Just leave. Bye. Go get another job with another elderly couple who you can decide to hate. Right. Now, after a little more than a month alone with Dolly, she couldn't stand it any longer.

Poor Dolly is also probably depressed.

After.

Montgomery just died. After Montgomery just died.

On February 28th, what did Velma do? She poisoned the elderly woman in the same way that she had done the others. Wow. Dolly was in excruciating pain for about a day until she passed away the following morning with Velma so out of it that she was oblivious. Dolly for a whole day was an excruciating, tortuous, sickness, and pain. And Dolly- Well, Velma just sat there and disassociated. This poor, elderly woman by herself-Who just.

Lost her husband.

-just torturously, excruciatingly dying in her own house. That's a horrible thing to think about.

I just thought of this, too. Those last couple of months for Edward were probably awful too, because there was such dysfunction in the house.

Yeah, for Montgomery, you mean?

Yeah, excuse me, for Montgomery.

Yeah, it's just dysfunction.

The last parts of their lives.

Were dysfunctional. It's just like the last parts of their lives were dysfunctional. It seems to be what.

She does. She sucks.

Now, under most circumstances, the amount of tragedy and death that seemed to follow Velma would have been suspicious. But remember, she's picking sick and elderly people, so their deaths are like, they're shocking, but not shocking. You know what I mean? They're not unusual. In the beginning of April, she sat wondering what she was going to do now. The Edwards were dead. She received a call from a woman who was looking for someone to provide live and care services for her parents. These people were John Henry and Record Lee. Mrs. Lee had recently broke her leg, and at 80 years old, her husband was unable to take care of her.

Eighty years old. You live your whole life, and then fucking Velma moves.

In with you. Yeah. She was going to get room and board. She would get a small salary. So she agreed to work with the Leys in late April. Now, just as before, Velma immediately found the job annoying. She found her employers intolerable. It's like, get.

Another.

Fucking job then. She said they argued a lot, constantly bickering over things of no importance. I'm like, Yeah, they're old.

Yeah, that's.

What you do. Isn't that what.

Old people do?

100%. After a few months, Velma's undue resentment of the couple had gone right into what it normally does, a hatred.

That's.

Wild. That's the thing. I'm like, Your hate and temper and anger is evil. It's evil. That's evil shit. She spent her days just seething and dreaming about how she could just... She was like, I just wanted to walk out and abandon them. It's like, then.

Do that. I was going to say go for it.

But she figured if she quit her job, she would have no money. Things changed in late summer when Velma needed to see a new doctor for her prescriptions, and this required a sum of money she just didn't have. To cover the cost, she stole a check from John Henry's checkbook and wrote out the amount of $50 forging his name at the bottom.

What a piece of shit.

The doctor accepted the check without question, which I'm like, Everybody else to check themselves here, too. What's wrong with all of you? Velma was able to get the medicine, but just as in the case of the loan taken out on her mother's house, she immediately began to panic that John Henry was going to get his bank statement and discover what she had done. Right. She said, In a state of panic, I again bought poison. She said.

Telling- I don't think that she really was in a state of panic. No, she.

Liked doing this. At this point- She got the added bonus of getting some money out of it.

-some money out of it. Exactly.

She said, Telling myself that I only wanted to make sick so that I could leave, get a different job, and replace the money I had taken by forgery. And that's not true. She is full of shit.

Because you make him sick for a little bit, he's still going to go over his bank statements when he gets better, and you know that. You didn't want to make.

Him sick. You wanted to kill him. You've seen that the amount of arsenic you're putting in food is killing people. It's not just making people sick. You're not changing it up. That's also fucked up.

I just wanted to.

Make people sick. I just wanted to make people have GI bleeds. I don't understand why that was a problem. It's like, You fucking... That's wild.

Yeah.

She's evil. That she's literally saying like, What? I just wanted to poison them a little. It's like, They are 80 years old, you fucking asshole.

That's wild.

A few days later, Velma served John Henry. The poisoned food and the arsenic immediately went to work. She said he went through the same kinds of pain that the others had gone through. Again, I watched in a detached way, feeling no connection between my actions and his pain. Wow. So she watched this poor old man in excruciating pain.

Eighty years old.

John Henry died on June fourth, 1977, with the medical examiner listing the cause of death as a heart attack.

That's horrible. Now, to think that these people could have lived longer and gotten more out of life than.

Just Velma. But she just takes it because she's annoyed. Now, just days after John Henry's death, Velma was shocked when she answered the Lee's front door to find Stewart Taylor. Like, What?

He tracked her down?

Standing before her. Hadn't seen Stuart in over a year. Velma didn't understand why she was seeing him now, but he quickly explained that he was in the process of divorcing his wife, and he wanted to check on Velma to see how she had been doing.

After you just fucking walked out.

Of her life. Ghosted her. Velma invited Stuart in, and they spent hours catching up. Following John Henry Lee's death, the Lee family convinced Thelma to stay on to take care of Reckard. That's even sadder. They convinced her to stay to take care of the wife. Because they had no idea. Thelma agreed, but it didn't take long before she started getting that feeling again. Oh, my God. Suddenly she was feeling resentment, anger, irritability. The only thing that made those months tolerable, she said, was that Stewart had been coming by for visits regularly, and before long they'd become a proper relationship, picking up where they had left off the year before. Velma spent a few months in the... At the home after John Henry's death, but eventually that anger and feelings came too much. So she found a job as a nurse's aide at a nearby nursing home where she worked third shift, and the salary was higher than anything she had made in recent years, so she was able to move into a trailer home by herself, which seemed to improve her mood a little bit. Now, after a while, Velma began to notice a pattern in Stewart's behavior that made her a little uneasy.

He would come around for a few days in a row and then disappear for a week. Binge drinking. With no, you nailed it. Then he'd just show up again like nothing had happened. On one of these occasions, Velma had become concerned and called Stewart's stepmother, who told her not to worry, he's been on one of his drinking bingees again. Exactly. By late summer, Velma and Stewart were spending nearly all their free time together, going on short trips, really going for it. For a time, it seems the rage and numbness was keeping at bay. She was feeling a little happiness with Stuart, I guess, which only or what she thought was happiness. I was just going to say does she know what that is? I was going to say, which only increased in the fall of 1977 when Stuart asked Belma to marry him. Now, the kids, her kids, Ronnie and Kim, were very immediately concerned. They were like, I think you're rushing into marriage again, and I think you're rushing into marriage with another alcoholic again.

Why would you do this? I don't think this is great, and he could be potentially violent. We've seen how this happens. Velma assured them that Stewart was working on that. Working on that, okay. Besides, they couldn't get married until Stewart's divorce was finalized in May, so there was time to.

Make everything work. Oh, my God. Can you imagine having to deal with this with your mother?

I literally can't. That's horrible. Now, years later, Velma would acknowledge that a marriage to Stewart would have been a bad idea.

Okay, so she.

Doesn't do it. She said, I never felt close to him at all. Yes, you did. Which is like, Damn, you really are cold as ice. Because it's like you pretended? What the fuck?

She said- I don't believe that she didn't feel.

Close to him. I can't comprehend why I wanted to be with him. Sometimes we're just lonely. We need somebody to talk to. I think that is who she is at her core. Damn. I just don't understand that. This callous, cold as ice person. Now, regardless of how she claimed to feel about him later, at the time, Velma seemed to go out of her way to get Stewart's attention.

That's the thing. She went out of her way to get her previous.

Husband's attention. This one's even wilder because she went to extremes to get his attention here. In one incident in November, police were called to her trailer when a friend stopped by to check on her and found Velma duct taped by her hands and feet with another piece across her mouth. She claimed she had entered the bathroom that morning about to take a shower when a man entered her trailer, threw a towel over her head, and forced her back into the bedroom where he secured her to the bed. She claimed she never saw her assailant and certainly couldn't identify him by voice alone. She, of course not. She had been taped to the bed, but she hadn't been assaulted by anybody in any way. There was nothing missing from the house. In fact, nobody had even gone through the house. There was nobody had clearly opened anything to look for valuable as nothing. What the fuck. Although they didn't say it at the time, the officers at the scene were like, I think she did this to herself.

How do you tape.

Yourself to a man? They said they think she did it to get sympathy from Stewart, and it worked. When Stewart arrived at her house a short time later, the officers, noticed how solicitous and reassuring he was being, and he demanded Velma wasn't going to stay another night alone and insisted she move in with him immediately. I've got to go.

I've got to go.

Yeah. Now, if Velma had thought that moving in with Stewart would be a positive step in their relationship, she was probably disappointed because it made it harder.

Yeah.

So, Stuart became very suspicious of Velma because she's a suspicious motherfucker.

Well, she has an addiction.

As well. Stewart began going through her things while she was out and found several letters from people she'd met in prison. What? Velma had never mentioned to her fiancé that she had gone to prison. Oh, my God. That was a big revelation to him, which is something you should probably tell someone. From there, the relationship just began to deteriorate. Velma and Stewart spent more time fighting than anything else. They just could not get along. No longer happy with that life, Velma fell right back into her old habits, started forging checks stolen from Stewart's checkbook. I was stealing checks from him. You were.

The con.

Woman, baby. He received his bank statement in December, noticed the Ford's checks used to pay the pharmacy and confronted Velma. He was like, Listen, if you don't return the money, I'm going to have you arrested. This is fucked up. With the relationship effectively over, she, Valman, ended up going to her son, Ronnie's house, hoping she could move in with him. But Ronnie was like, You can't. I'm living with my wife. He had an infant child at that point, and he was like, The way you are is not conducive to me having a happy family life with my little family. I need to take care of my child.

And my wife. I so hate that both of her kids were put in that position.

But also-.

Good for them. -good for you guys. -for putting.

Your family first. Those boundaries and those putting your own little families first is sometimes necessary, and you did the right thing.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. Well done. Especially- But I'm sorry you had to go.

Through that.

Because that's- That's the thing. I can't imagine how distressing that is.

Because no matter what, it's your family. It's your mom. Then you have to choose another part of your family over her. She should have never put them in that position.

But really good for them for recognizing that that would be starting a cycle that could really.

Turn out bad. And especially to realize that in that time period, too, where again, talk therapy wasn't the.

Biggest thing. Yeah, so that's good for them. But this rejection was a big one. Especially her son. Her son, that just seems to be a different thing for her. She went from uncontrolled sobbing to a rage that Ronnie said he had never seen in.

His mother. And he also was like, Hey, this is why you can't live here. He's like, This is why you.

Can't live here. He said it was a mean, mean look, real angry, unlike any I've ever seen before. I even literally wrote in my notes, You did the right thing, Ronni. Yeah, absolutely. I was like, I need you to know you did the right thing.

I would be like, You're proving me.

Right right now. I can't have you near my infant child and my wife doing this. You were being the dad. You were taking care of your family. Good for you. And Kim.

Did the same thing.

Good for Kim being the mom and taking care of her shit. Hell, yeah. Now, by January 1978, Velma had quit her job and was hospitalized again for a brief period of time. Without money to pay for anything, she again stole checks from Stewart, which triggered that panic that he was going to report her. That familiar panic said in, She was only going to make him sick, she told herself. Just long enough for her to replace the money so he wouldn't find out about the checks. Of course, Velma did not just make Stewart sick. She poisoned him with arsenic, just as she had the others. Stewart spent the evening of February third in absolute agony, and eventually, Velma took him to the hospital. But by then it was too late. Within a few hours, he was pronounced dead.

So she killed three people within the same family? Mm-hmm. That's nuts.

Yeah.

Like a couple of months apart.

Yeah.

Wow.

And all for the same reasons. There's no need to- Same trivial. You annoyed me and I stole your money and I was scared you were going to report me.

She is fucked. What is she up to? How many people she killed at this point. She killed her second husband, then her mother, then.

One of the only person.

Dolly, and Dolly's husband.

Not Montgomery. She didn't kill Montgomery.

Oh.

Right. So she killed Dolly. She killed John Henry. Oh, my God. And she's killed Stewart.

Holy shit.

Now, until Stewart's death, Velma's victims, like we said, had all been sick or elderly, precisely the type of people you would expect to die from an illness or an accident or some you know. Yeah, or a heart attack. Stewart was only 56 years old at the time of his death. I was just going to ask. He was in relatively good health. That's fucking wild. Now, under the circumstances, I guess relatively good health to all things considered about his lifestyle. He wasn't on the pay. Nobody expected him to just drop dead. Now, under the circumstances, the family was stunned and confused by his death. They were like, Yeah, we want an autopsy. They were eager for a pathologist to perform one. In fact, they even included Velma in their decision to have the autopsy performed, which she agreed was a good idea. What? She said, I didn't expect them to find anything. Besides, my mind was already convincing me that I had not killed Stuart. And here's the thing.

Girl, you dumped a plate full of.

Fucking arsenal. But she's probably thinking, especially at this time period, how are they going to find it? He was vomiting and diarrhea and all that. So she thinks it came out of the system? It's probably out of the system. They're not going to find that shit. It's not like we're as advanced as we are now. Even now it can be tough to find. You know what I mean? It's a tough one. She's probably thinking like, What the fuck are they going to find? They're not going to find arsenic. Wow. Yeah.

I wonder if they wouldn't have... Well, I don't know what happens, I'm assuming they do. I don't know if they wouldn't have if she hadn't put so much. I know. I'm interested to find that out.

She really goes... Now, despite pressure from Stewart's family, the pathologist could only work as fast as his partners in the lab could turn around test results. The results of the autopsy were delayed by several weeks because they were trying to go through all the strange abnormalities they were discovering during the initial exam. In fact, it wasn't until the pathologist was describing the results to the state's chief medical examiner, Paige Hudson, that things started moving again. While the technicians and pathologists had recognized suspicious elements of the autopsy, it was Hudson who immediately recognized Stewart Taylor's death as acute arsenic poisoning. Hudson's presumption would take a little more time and a few more tests to confirm. Sorry, I was moving. That's why I was like... But in the meantime, he had called the police and the district attorney to let them know that they very likely had a murder on their hands. Now, following Stewart's murder, Velma fell right back into that cycle of working the overnight shift, then returning home to get lost and just disassociation. She did get the occasional visitor, but she was very surprised when the doorbell rang on March 10th, and she opened it to find a man she'd never seen before standing on her doorstep.

The man introduced himself as Benson Phillips, a detective with the Lemberton Police Department. He asked Thelma to come down to the station with him to talk about a few suspicious deaths, including that of her latest fiancé, Stewart Taylor. Oh, shit. Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wundry's podcast, American scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US history, presidential lies, corruption in sports, corporate fraud. Our newest season looks at Aaron Hernandez, a rising pro football star who shocked the sports world when he was arrested for a brutal murder in 2013. Fans, media, and Hernandez's own family couldn't understand how a beloved and respected player for the New England Patriots with a 40 million dollar contract could commit such a heinous crime. But there had been warning signs all along the way, and they pointed to a much larger health crisis among current and former NFL players. Follow American scandal on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge American scandal Aaron Hernandez early and ad-free right now on Wondry+. Now, in the short amount of time since the abnormalities were discovered in Stewart's autopsy, investigators had traced a path backwards from Velma and found that Stewart was just the latest in a surprising number of weird deaths that seemed to involve the 45-year-old nurse's age.

She was only 45. The deaths included the recently deceased, Stewart Taylor, Velma's mother, Lilly, and her former employers. They did include Montgomery and John Henry Lee, all having shown signs of gastroenteritis. Wow. Yeah. Now, in the interrogation room, Velma acted stunned when the detectives connected the dots between her and the other suspicious deaths. She said, You all think I poison Stewart, don't you? And she started crying and was like- Putting on a show. The investigators are like, Oh, great. She's going to confess right here and there. We got her. But she called their bluff and just maintained her innocence throughout the entire conversation. But fortunately, a few days later, the final results from the autopsy came back and confirmed that Stewart had died from arsenic poisoning. Damn. Detective Phillips took the news to Stewart's family and informed them that they suspected Velma of having killed their father.

Sorry, her children thought that she killed their dad?

No, I should have said that a better way. I'm sorry. No, that's okay. Stewart had children. Oh, okay. I see. With his ex-wife. Previous wife. I should have stated that a little better because that would have been confusing. No, that makes sense. This prompted Stewart's daughter, Alice, to provide the investigators with all the information on the forged checks and Velma's other suspicious behavior in the weeks leading up to Stewart's murder.

That's the thing. It's like you created, like you were saying earlier, a paper trail.

On the evening of March 13th, 1978, Detective Benson returned to Velma's house, this time for a warrant for her arrest for the murder of Stewart Taylor. Although investigators were tight-lipped about the other deaths Velma was suspected of having caused, lumberthin, North Carolina is a small town, and it wasn't hard for the press and locals to put the pieces together. Now confronted with the evidence against her and the threat of revealing tests being conducted on the exhumed bodies now of her mother and Dolly and Montgomery Edwards. Oh, wow. Velma confessed that she had indeed murdered by poisoning. On March 26th, district attorney Joe Brit presented his case against Velma to the Robeson County grand jury who indicted Velma Barfield on one count of first-degree murder. But Velma was absent from the courtroom at the time because she was admitted to Dorothy a Dicks Hospital for a few days for a psychological examination. I wonder how that worked. A month later, Dr. Bob Rawlings, a psychiatrist from the hospital, completed and submitted the results of examination of Velma, in which she determined that she was competent to stand trial. A month later, on May fifth, Velma was arrested for the murder in a Robeson County courtroom where she played not guilty by reason of insanity.

As the pieces of the puzzle begin coming together in the press, the residents of Lumberton grew increasingly shocked by the number of Velma's victims and the manner in which they were killed. Because like we said, sometimes you hear poisoning and you think, I think your brain sometimes just goes to like, Oh, no, I don't feel well. Then somebody passes out and dies. It's like, Oh, no, this is fucking gruesome. It is an awful way to die. She was a real monster. It's right up there with stabbing and doing awful hand-to-hand shit. It's mad.

She just sat there and.

Watched it happen. She just watched it happen. That's even worse. One resident told the Charlotte news, You just don't expect to have a mass murderer in your town, which I mean, valid.

Yeah, accurate.

I don't. A friend of Stewart's named Yates Allen agreed and told her reporters he was very angry at Velma. He said, For causing a friend of mine to go through what he went through, certainly he suffered the tortures of the damned, which I was like, Wow. Shit. You're a writer. But most people simply couldn't wrap their heads around the idea of what they knew as a pretty kind, helpful woman. Because again, she had gotten recommended to work with these elderly people. Right. She was by all accounts, a loving mom, even though they had a tough childhood, obviously. I don't think she outwardly was showing a lot of things that would lead anyone to believe she could do this. They just couldn't believe she had done it. Alan again said, Stuart, in all his life, he wouldn't go to church. This one got him going two or three times a week. Wow, she was going to church? That's the thing. I was like, I don't know if that's the flex that you think it is because this serial killer got him going two or three times a week. I don't know what that says about anything, but I feel like maybe we could just leave that to the birds.

I think he was like, Damn.

I don't know... This bitch was going to church two or three times a week. I don't have a comment. I don't know. I don't have a lot of words for it.

I don't have a comment.

But I'm like, Damn. Damn, indeed. They were sitting in pews with a serial killer. That's wild. She's sitting there talking up a big game. I mean, according to her, and you'll hear she gets saved later in prison. It's like, I don't.

Believe.

That.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I think that's such bullshit. You sat and.

Watched people in the most agonizing pain. Yeah, that's fucked. Vomiting up everything in their body to the point where they were probably vomiting up actual body fluids that they need. They need to survive. Crying, sobbing, begging for help, shitting themselves, grasping their stomachs in agony and excruciating pain. Eighty-year-old women, your own fucking mother. You're sitting in a pew and telling me, Well, it's fine.

Yeah, that's like- No.

No. I'm sorry. I don't buy that.

You took people's loved ones away in the last years of their lives when they could have had them longer. You can't do what you've.

Done and then tell me that everything's fine now. You can't do mom. It's like, no, it's not.

And to kill Lilly, too, who when you were a child would blame silly things that happened on.

Herself and take abuse- Just to try to take it away, yeah.

-take abuse for you. Just to try to take it away?

Yeah. That doesn't make sense to me, which I'm like, Okay, girl, think what you want to think. But there's no way that you're getting.

Out of this. Well, and I just don't understand that you're supposed to live by a certain code, and then you don't.

You live the furthest away.

From it. But I don't get that.

I just don't understand. No, I don't understand it either. This doesn't make any sense to me, but go off. But while the locals struggled with the idea of one of their own having done any of this, the prosecutor's office and Velma's defense team began building their cases. For district attorney, Joe Brit, it was a pretty simple case. A slim dunk. Velma Barfield was a confessed murderer of at least one, but possibly as many as six, who killed for reasons so trivial as they.

Annoyed.

Her. The victim annoyed her, literally. In fact, Brit was so convinced the jury would only see Velma is guilty, he skipped his opening remarks altogether and went right into calling his first witness. He was like, I don't even need to do this. From one witness to the next, Joe Brit laid out a narrative where Velma had stolen from her boyfriend in order to get her pills and then killed him in order to prevent him from discovering the theft. It was pretty black and white. As evidence of her misdeeds, Brit produced the four checks Velma had from Stewart, and the defense immediately objected, pointing out that in order for the checks to be relevant, Brent needed to point out to prove that Stewart didn't authorize her to sign on his behalf, which they were like, You can't do that. You can't prove that.

He's not here.

He said, I do not intend to introduce them to the... I merely wanted them marked for identification. This actually turned out to be Joe Brent's most successful strategy in the courtroom because he skirted dangerously close to prejudicing the jury. Just a little bit, but it worked.

Okay. In this case, you're like, God.

What did you got to do? Now, Brit relied on this same tactic a few days later when he called John Henry and Record Lee's daughter, Margie Pitman, to the stand.

Because she killed Record as.

Well, right? She did not.

No?

I don't believe so.

I think she did. I think she killed Record after she killed John because that was the one where they convinced her to stay, right?

Yeah, she stayed, but then I think she ended up moving on to that nursing job and moving into the trailer before she could do anything. Oh, okay. Sorry. It gets confusing. There's a lot of people. Now, her name is Margie Pitman. They brought her to the stand, and this drew immediate objections from the defense, who argued that Brit was attempting to use evidence from an unrelated crime, because they're talking about Stewart's murder, to prove intent to the murder of Stewart Taylor. Defense attorney Bob Jacobson said, Mr. Brit is trying to try five or six cases here rather than one. The judge agreed, but allowed Brit to continue presenting evidence from the other cases as a means of establishing Velma's pattern of intent, which I think is right. I think that's fair. Now, arguing in Velma's defense, Bob Jacobson presented an equally simple case to the jury. He said she was raised by an extremely violent man who terrorized the entire household. And so she went on to develop mental illness and a severe drug addiction in adulthood that caused her to lose control and made her psychotic and violent.

He wasn't arguing that she hadn't murdered Stewart? No. He was saying she did.

It in insanity. Basically, the insanity thing. Now, Jacobson noted that his client had like we said, killed Stewart Taylor, but she had done so in a psychotic, manic state, and therefore could not be held accountable for her actions. I don't agree. Yeah. Now, moreover, Velma maintained that she had always intended only to make her victim sick. Remember, I was just going to make them sick. Right. Just to buy myself enough time to give back that money. Not true. She never intended to kill them, even though she did it six times the exact same way. That's the thing. Again, that was the problem is that Brittany had already established that she had done this six times, same outcome every time. Right. He was like, I don't know about that. She actually was on the stand at one point, Velma. They brought her on the stand and she was very combative. She did not help herself. She came off as a real asshole. For a case as complicated and emotionally charged as Velma's was, it was pretty surprising because it moved pretty quickly. The trial began on November 27th, 1978. Both sides rested within a week. Wow.

The jury was also quick to make their decision. They deliberated for a little over an hour and returned a verdict of guilty. Then they deliberated a little more than 3 hours before delivering a recommendation that Velma be executed in the state's gas chamber. Now, when the verdict and sentence was delivered, Velma was emotionless. She just sat there. She was chewing gum just sitting there. But her daughter, Kim, was sitting a little few rows behind her and just started sobbing.

Of.

Course. I just can't even imagine.

Because it's like she already was dealing with such a strained relationship.

With her mom. Now this comes out. And you.

Find.

This out? You find out she killed your grandmother?

Oh, my God. I didn't even.

Think of that. Who you got along with?

I didn't even think of that. Yeah.

What a heavy...

Your grandmother and multiple... Your mother killed elderly people, including your grandmother.

Wow. Yeah. For prosecutor Joe Brett, who was an ardent proponent of the death penalty. The verdict was a huge victory. He said, if there's ever been a case deserving imposition of the ultimate penalty, this is it. He told the recorders, through a callous, malicious, indifferent act, killed him Mrs. Barfield killed him dead, and he's gone for eternity. Which I was like, I know, I mean, that's what.

Death is, but.

Thank you. It was just him emphasizing, I think. But I was like, Yeah, I could have done without that. You don't have to get flowery with it. Now, removed from the courtroom and taken to a maximum security wing at the Women's Correctional Center in Raleigh, Thelma became the second woman on death row since the state reintroduced capital punishment the previous year. During a jailhouse interview that they did, I think about a week after the sentence was passed, Thelma told the reporter she was guilty of the murder, and she said if she was given a choice, she was not interested in appealing her sentence. She said, Personally, I don't want an appeal. Personally, I'd rather go ahead. The day is February ninth, and that was the day they had set for her execution. Whether she meant what she told the reporters or was just talking a big game in front of cameras, nobody really knows. But, Velma did appear remarkably calm in the days after the sentence was delivered.

Well, she had attempted to take her life much more than she had. So it seems like maybe she was ready to be here.

She said, I know people are saying poor old Velma sitting up there on Death Row. I was like, I don't know if many people are saying that, but okay. She said, But I wish they wouldn't because I know when the final breath comes, it will just be goodbye here and hello on the other side. I have joy unspeakable.

I don't know what other side you're.

Prepared for. I don't know. Especially with what you believe in. I don't know if you're going to the great one here. Now, after being delivered to the women's correction, and the women in the prison center, she became sober for the first time. Wow, that's shocking. And told the press that she had traded all of that for a newfound commitment to Christ. She said, I'm off drugs. Thank the Lord. She said, I turned all this trouble over to the hands of the Lord months before the trial. He doesn't promise to go part of the way and then drop us.

Okay.

I was like, okay. While Velma may have been ready to go forward with the execution as it had been scheduled, turned out the state was not ready to do that. Following her conviction and the sentencing, her case became the subject of many appeals on her behalf in the years that followed. The execution date got scheduled, rescheduled multiple times. There were tons of stays of execution pending the outcome of her appeals.

There can be appeals placed.

Even if you don't- On your behalf. Interesting. When things change too, when laws change or bills go into effect, they will take another look at the case just to-.

Even if you.

Don't care if you do or not. -to even it out because they have to even it out with the laws that are happening or anything. In that time, Velma's story and defense had time to change and evolve from what was presented in the court a few years later. Oh, God. In her 1978 defense, Bob Jacobson argued that Velma was an emotionally disturbed. Essentially, he called her a drug addict who was unable to control her actions. He was really pushing that narrative and could not be held responsible for the outcome of anything she did. But by 1980, Velma had become a born-again Christian and was no longer welcoming an execution. She said, I know I've been forgiven, just like I have been able to forgive all the people I felt had hurt me so many times and those I felt so bitter towards.

I always wonder how people know so strongly.

Yeah, that.

They've been forgiven. Well, and also- That's a lot to beg on. -you know who hasn't forgiven you? I'm pretty sure the family members are the people you killed. Yeah. I think those are the ones you need to worry about forgiving you. Probably. But she doesn't care about that. She's just curious. I forgive myself. It's good.

To me, that's just straight-up delusion.

I loved in this case. I also love the like, what a shittastic way of saying it, too. It's not like I've been forgiven. She's like, I've been forgiven. Don't worry, I've forgiven everybody else, too. It's like, Oh, okay. I'm really glad that you've forgiven everybody, Velma. Yeah, same old Velma. Now, around the same time, it seemed Velma had also changed her mind about not wanting to appeal her sentence. In 1980, she filed an appeal with the Fourth Circuit Court of appeals and a petition for a writ of habious corpus. Among other things, the petition argued that Velma had received inadequate representation and her rights had been violated when the trial judge refused to request for additional counsel at the state's expense. In defense of this, of his effective defense, Bob Jacobson explained to the court that Velma was a very difficult client in a very difficult case, and additional court-appointed attorneys were unlikely to have made the defense any more successful. He said, I counseled her to be a sympathetic witness to look like somebody's mother and evoke sympathy. He said, Frankly, I felt she would get into an argument with district attorney, Joe Freeman-Brett, and my fears came to pass.

He was referring to Velma being so combative and so fucking unpleasant on the stand when she was being questioned by Brit. Yeah. He was like, Be a mom. Act sympathetic. Do your best. She was just like, Fuck you guys. I don't give a shit. Now, the court rejected the appeal and upheld the verdict and the sentencing writing, When the petitioner's forecast of evidence is assessed in its best light possible, in conjunction with those elements of respondents opposing materials that are not disputed, it simply fails to raise more than a basis for bald conjecture. Now, by the early 1980s, Velma's case became a major talking point for politicians in North Carolina, in particular, Governor Jim Hunt, during his re-election campaign against Senator Jesse Helms in 1984. Hunt tried to minimize the issue of the death penalty during the campaign. He said, I think the effect of the death penalty will be to cause less taking of life when people do premeditate and plan in advance. That is untrue. It doesn't do shit. Supporters of capital punishment agreed with one proponent of Elma's sentence telling reporters, We live by the law or we go into a country of anarchism.

Okay. It's like, studies have said that it doesn't help. Just saying. By 1984, Velma had exhausted her appeals, and barring a stay of execution or clemency from the governor was scheduled to die on November second, 1984. Although Clemency was very unlikely by that fall, Stewart's mother and daughter, as well as nine family members of the other victims, met with the governor and urged him not to interfere with the execution.

That's sad that they.

Even had to do that. They were worried that he was going to suddenly step out. Stewart's daughter, Alice said, She's an outstanding liar. A serial killer does not want help. They enjoy killing, and Velma Barfield enjoys killing. I agree with that. That is the truth. I agree with Alice. Lawyer is working. We've said this many times about the death penalty where we stand, but I agree with her on that sentiment that I don't believe she should have left jail.

No, I don't either. I think I'm at a place where I feel like the death penalty for me is so gray and more like case by case. In this case.

I tend to agree with it. Really? Yeah. See, I think she should have just been in prison.

I think she didn't give a shit for what she did. A lot of times I want people to remain in prison so they have to think about it all the time. I think it sounds to me like she didn't think about it very often. She didn't give a shit. That's true.

But lawyers working on Velma's behalf had argued tirelessly for a stay in the weeks leading up to her execution. But on November first, Velma accepted her fate and asked them to stop. The next morning at 2:15 AM, Marge of Elma Barfield died by lethal injection at North Carolina's Central Prison. She was the first woman executed in the United States in 22 years. Wow. And what one witness said, I didn't notice any suffering at all. She just seemed to relax. Yeah. What a leek. I don't see the justice in that. Fucking case. Because it's like she... And it's not even done. Oh, my God. What? We're almost done. But that's where I don't... I think where I have gotten off the death to death because I'm like, There's no justice in that. Look at what the witness just said. There's no suffering at all. She's just relaxed. But who knows? But her victims went through fucking agony in their final moments.

But it's like, was she suffering when she was sitting in prison?

I would rather her just sitting there. Give her a few more years. I'm sure she would.

I do see your point.

I understand. I'm just like, I'm like, Let her sit around and have nothing to do.

To me, I feel like there's no, in Velma's case, no justice.

With that. There's really no justice anywhere because you can't have justice when six people were fucking horrifically murdered. It's likeThere really is no justice anywhere. It's like, I don't want to watch. It's so hard because obviously, you're not like, Give her arsenic poisoning and let her die that way. That's fucked up. But as a human being, you know what I mean? But it's like, I'd rather her just be, Bye. See you later.

I don't know how I would... I think you wouldn't know how you would feel unless it.

Happened to you. Again, I'm not a family member, so I speak from an outside position, never having had to deal with somebody taking my family.

Member away. I do wonder, and this is just a pure thought of, I don't know, if I was a family member of one of those people that she killed, would I want her killed? Is that justice? Would I want her still to be able to breathe oxygen that my family should be breathing?

That's the thing. I have no idea. I can speak, and I fully recognize the privilege of being able to speak from a place where my family member was not taken from me by a murderer. Right. It's like, I'm not going to sit here and say, I totally understand what I would do. That's why I'm like... I got to give a 10. Whatever the family members want, I tend to agree with. Even in this case, the family members didn't want her execution stopped. That's what they wanted. Then don't stop it. Then that's what I have to go with.

In a way, is that justice? Is that a slice of justice because they.

Had a say in the end? Because they got a say in it. Because even in the Boston bombing case, the family members came forward and said they didn't want him executed. I was like, Then don't execute it. If that's what they want.

I almost feel like it should lie with the family members.

I know, it feels like. They'll all come out.

In the end. Yeah, like a jury maybe. This is just me thinking, like a jury convict and then the family members that are remaining decide the fate.

But then that could get so fucking messy. But it's like, I don't know. That's the thing. It's so hard. That's why I'm always shocked when somebody can have such a black and white opinion about things because I'm like, It's just so much gray. I don't think a lot of things in life are black and white. I don't think a lot of things in life are black and white. The human condition is not an easy thing to just put into boxes, I feel like. So it's like this is not...

Because even within a family.

People might disagree. Exactly. That's the thing. It's all really what you've dealt with. It's like fucked up. No matter which way you're in. But for anybody who's had to be in that position, I'm sorry you've ever had to be in that position because again, I don't- That's awful. That must be an impossible position to be in. But just before the doctors did execute her, Warden Nathan Rice asked her if there was anything she wanted to say, and she said, I want to say that I'm sorry for the hurt that I've caused. I know that everybody has gone through a lot of pain, all the families connected, and I'm sorry.

That was nice that she used.

Her final words for that, I guess. Because some of them don't. Yeah, some of them say awful things. Now, later that day, Ronnie Burke spoke to reporters about his mother's final days, and he said, I want people to know she wanted to live very badly. She wanted to live for her grandchildren. We miss her already.

That's.

Really sad for her children. That's what makes me say that's the thing. That's where you do sit in the gray. There's so many parts that you're just like, Well, fuck.

Because her kids didn't.

Deserve that. I think, and again, I'm going to go with the victim's family members here. I'll never go against them for what they wanted, and they wanted that to happen, and that is perfectly fine. But that's why the death penalty can be tricky because you can't reverse it.

There are victims where there's victims that were killed, but I would say her children.

Are victims as well. Absolutely. There's far-reaching fuck-uppery that happens when something like that happens. There's so many different... Like a nasty onion of just layers of people affected by it, by one person's actions. They all get different treatment. The kids get different treatment, and then the victim's family. There's so many different layers here.

That makes me... Overall, her children never got what they.

Should have received from her. My heart breaks, obviously, for the victim's families, and my heart breaks for her kids. Because like we said throughout this whole thing, they just tried to be the best son and daughter they could. Two days later, after the execution, Velma Barfield was buried beside her first husband, Thomas Burke, in a funeral attended by nearly 200 people. In the eulogy, Reverend Philip Carter noted that Velma was no stranger to suffering, but during her six years in prison, she had become a born-again Christian and helped many of the other inmates at the Correctional Center for Women. He said she said she wanted to be known as a good Christian and nothing else. That's what Ronnie told the reporters, and I was like, Unfortunately, that is not what she's going to be known as.

You can't.

Wipe away- He was hoping that the good that his mother had done in the last years of her life would offset a little bit of the pain she had caused, which that's definitely a child speaking of his... Or not a child. I mean, like a- His inner child. -his inner child speaking for his mother. Absolutely. Which I can understand, but unfortunately, she is a serial killer. That will never go away.

From what she did to those families.

She has done un-fucking thinkable deeds, and she has shattered countless lives. Yeah. I mean, she sat there and watched these people go through something that I couldn't watch my worst enemy go through. Wow. Velma, I told you this was a real- You weren't lying. -i told you this.

Was a real- Interesting, though. She's very interesting to.

Hear about. A real ride.

Yeah, because in the way you were saying it seemed like she wasn't capable of love with what she did people that she claimed to love. Then she did seem like she could love with the way that she treated her kids. She treated them badly in certain areas of life where she just expected to be able to live with them and fuck up their lives. But then she took care of them as children and felt physically ill when she was.

Away from them. It looks like when she found Jesus or whatever she did in prison, it's like she seemed like she was trying to do better things in there. It's like, so would she have just... You can never take away what she did, but it's like, could she have been imprisoned for the rest of her life and maybe-.

Reformed in prison.

-at least reformed to the point of you look at it and go, Well, okay. It turned around, but she's in prison.

I don't know. I do think as a society, we need to be more open to the idea that people can be reformed. I think even as a human myself, I need to be more open to that idea.

It's hard because some people can.

Then that's.

The thing. That's the thing. It's like not everybody can, I don't believe at least. I don't. I think there are some people, trust me, we've covered some of them that there's no fucking way.

But I do think we need to explore it more.

Yeah. I mean, everything needs such an overhaul. It really does. The justice system is in extreme need of an overhaul.

This one really got me thinking.

Yeah, it does. This one, because it's a strange one.

It's layered.

And a disturbing one. Yeah. She's very awful. But like.

And who knows?

If she.

Ever got out, could she have really been reformed? Or would she have done this again? Would somebody fucking.

Annoy her and she- Well, that's the thing. I don't think she should be. I don't think she could have been let out. I think she had too... That disposition, I don't think was going anywhere, but maybe she could have been contained in prison and been maybe more of a... I don't know. I don't even know how to explain it. Like a decent member of society in there somewhere, but I don't think she should have been let back out into ours. Yeah.

The fuck. Damn, yeah. The wheels are turning for sure. I hope yours are too. That was captivating, for sure. Oh, I don't know. I'm really sorry to all of the victims that she...

That she took your two loved ones from and her kids.

Yeah. Wow. With that, we hope.

You keep listening. And we hope you. Keep it weird.

-weird. But not so weird that you go by arsenic poison when somebody annoys you because that's really not a way to handle anything, baby. Yeah, don't do that. Go to talk therapy or I don't know, get a smoothie.

Get a smoothie. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to more of it early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen ad-free with Wundery+ and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondry. Com. Com/survey. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondry, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. With over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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