Death Sentence: The True Story of Velma Barfield's Life, Crimes, and ExecutionA haunting true story that resonates with today's headlines, Death Sentence takes us inside the life of a multiple killer - and the only woman to be executed in the United States from 1962 until 1998. On February 3, 1978, North Carolina farmer Stuart Taylor was rushed to the hospital. His forty-six-year-old fiancee, Velma Barfield, a devout Sunday school teacher, held vigil at his bedside. But prayers couldn't save him. An autopsy revealed that arsenic had killed him. To those who knew her, Velma was a devoted mother and grandmother, a sweet and selfless caregiver. But her life was a fragile web of lies that unraveled with alarming speed, exposing a deeply disturbed woman addicted to prescription drugs, driven to bouts of suicidal despair. And murder. Turned over to the police by her son, Velma stunned her family by admitting to having murdered four people over the course of ten years - including her own mother. But there were secrets she held back... secrets not known until now. |
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