Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - She Killed Both Her Husbands - The Velma Barfield Story

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Velma Barfield was a North Carolina caretaker who became one of the most notorious female poisoners in U.S. history. Between 1971 and 1978, she quietly murdered multiple people in her orbit- beginning with her husband, Jennings Barfield, who died in a suspicious house fire while he slept, and later her own mother, along with an elderly couple she stole money from. Her final victim was her boyfriend, Stuart Taylor, whom she poisoned after he discovered she’d forged his checks.

To realize the future America needs, we understand what's needed from us. To face each threat head on. We've earned our place in the fight for our nation's future. We are Marines. We were made for this. So this woman is so addicted to painkillers that she'll murder people to get them. Now, the woman's name is Velma, and Velma's 30 when this story starts, and she's living in North Carolina, and Velma has a big problem.

Like I said, she's addicted to them pissed. Because one day in 1962, she's been dealing with some severe back pain. And to help with the pain, she started taking pain killers. And so now she's hooked. And if her life isn't terrible enough, her marriage is also falling apart. Because one day, her husband, this guy Thomas, Thomas gets in a horrible car crash. And that puts him in a lot of pain, and so he starts taking pain meds and drinking heavily to deal with all of it. And so they're both drunk and high all the time and they start arguing and fighting and years pass.

But their marriage still isn't any better. And one day in 1969, Velma decides she's had enough. Thomas just keeps making her life miserable and she wants out of this relationship. Now, she could go and get a divorce like a normal human being, but of course that's not what she does. Instead, she decides that the only way out of this marriage is to kill Thomas. So one night, while Thomas is sleeping, she allegedly sets the house on fire with him still in it. And unfortunately, the fire ends up unaliving Thomas. So now Velma's marriage is done, and she moves on.

And a few months later, it's 1970 now, Velma meets this guy, Jennings. And Velma thinks Jennings is fine, and Jennings likes her right back. And so they hit it off and they start dating, and soon they get married. Now remember, Velma is still addicted to painkillers, so much so that she's constantly overdosing and like poor Jennings has to rush her to the hospital whenever she does. And I don't know if it's because of her drug habit or what, but pretty quickly their marriage breaks down as well.

and at this point they're fighting all the time and they're even talking about getting a divorce. But you know Velma and Velma doesn't appear to do divorces. No, no, no. She's going to go right to the murder. So after only being married to him for around a year, she decides to poison his food with arsenic. And of course, Jennings eats it. And pretty quickly he gets sick, like really sick. And later, his heart fails and he unfortunately dies. So again, Velma's marriage is done and again, she moves on. And eventually she moves back in with her mother, who we'll just call mother. And so she moves back in with her and she tries to carry on with her normal life, but don't

forget, she's still addicted to those painkillers, and at some point she becomes desperate for more pills. So what does she do? Well, she starts stealing from her own mom. She actually applies for loans by forging her mother's signature and she uses those loans to pay for her pain meds. She also uses her mother's properties as collateral for the loans, which is just really fucked up. Now, eventually, mother starts getting suspicious that maybe someone is forging her signature. And Velma knows that her mom is getting suspicious and she doesn't

want her to find out that it's her. So she comes up with a plan to stop that from happening. like she did with her last two husbands, she's now going to kill her mom. So she starts putting Aunt Killer in her mom's food, which, you know, has arsenic in it, and pretty quickly, mother starts throwing up and getting diarrhea so bad that she has to be rushed to the hospital. And shortly after, she, unfortunately, dies of a heart attack. So now, Velma has no one left, no husband, no mother, and no one to fund her pain pill addiction. But she's not going to give up. She's going to get her drugs one way or another.

So she decides to start forging checks in the name of her late husband, Jennings. Like she'll walk into a store and she'll buy a few things, but she'll pay with the check. But later, when the store tries to cash the check, it'll bounce. Because, you know, the guy's dead. And she doesn't do this just once. Like, she does it a bunch of times. And eventually, I guess one of the stores reports her. And so, bam, Phelma gets a...

arrested, and she's convicted of writing the bad checks, and she's sentenced to six months in prison. Now, here's where the story gets really dark. Three months later, she gets out on good behavior, and it's now 1975, and Velma decides to get a job working with the elderly as a home health nurse. And so she starts to take care of this elderly couple, this 93-year-old man and his 83-year-old wife. And the man is an amputee, so he's bedridden. He also has eye problems, and his wife is in her 80s, which makes them fully dependent on Velma.

So she works there for a while, and soon enough, Velma begins stealing from them. She steals money, she forges checks in their name, and this goes on for about two years. And in 1977, I don't know if she just gets tired of taking care of the husband, or if he starts noticing money missing or what. But either way, Velma decides it's time to get rid of him. So she starts putting arsenic in his food, and soon enough, the poor guy is dead. And sadly, some weeks later, Velma does the same thing to his wife. She unalives her too. And from there, she just keeps going.

Like a month later, she takes another job caring for another elderly couple, and before long, she forges a $50 check from the husband. And husband eventually sees the check, and he knows he's. not the one who signed it. Now, he doesn't necessarily suspect that Velma forged it, but he still reports it to the police. And they look into it, but they don't find enough evidence to accuse anyone of any crime. And this, the fact that she didn't get caught, only seems to make Velma bolder. So she keeps doing it. She steals $100 here, $200 there, and no one suspects it's her. But soon enough, the husband and wife do start to suspect it's her.

And Velma doesn't want anyone to suspect that she's stealing. So she decides she's going to do the thing that she always does. She's going to murder one of them, the husband. And that's exactly what she does. She serves him some food laced with arsenic, and unfortunately he doesn't survive. He dies from a heart attack. And again, no one suspects Velma. So it just seems like she's just going to keep going on killing people one by one,

and she'll keep getting away with it. Until Until a few months later Velma starts dating this guy, his name's Stuart and before long she moves in with Stewart And of course she starts stealing from him too Because that's who she is And she needs money to pay for her painkillers

So she starts forging his signature on checks But then one day Stewart finds a forged check with his signature on it And he knows he didn't write this check And he also knows there's only one person who could have done this to him, his girlfriend, Velma. So he confronts her and he warns her that if this happens again, he'll call police. And you already know, Velma isn't going to let that happen.

So she decides it's time to kill Stewart too. So once again, Velma starts lacing his food with poison, and then I guess they drive to church that day, and during the sermon, Stewart starts getting really sick. Later, Velma drives him home, but he's still feeling really bad and so a friend who I guess is with them is super concerned and he calls an ambulance. But, unfortunately, it's too late.

Poor Stewart doesn't make it. Here's the thing, though. Because he's not elderly, like the other people she poisoned, doctors find this sudden death pretty suspicious. And so they perform an autopsy and they discover traces of arsenic in his system. And that is when police get a tip linking Velma to the case, noting that a few of her previous husbands had also died under mysterious circumstances.

And so, bam, she's arrested. And I don't have a mugshot, but here's a picture of her behind bars. And ultimately, she's found guilty of first-degree murder, and she gets sentenced to death.