Death Sentence (25 page)

“You may be excused,” the judge said to Hudson.

As Hudson left the stand, Britt rose.

“The state rests,” he said.

After lunch, Bob Jacobson began by calling Dr. Arthur Douglas, the psychiatrist who had been appointed at Jacobson’s request to perform an independent evaluation of Velma. Douglas had interviewed her on May 29, during a period in which Velma was several times taken from jail to the emergency room with severe headaches and nausea. But before Douglas could answer a single question, Britt objected and requested that the jury be excused.

Britt contended that during Douglas’ examination Velma had made self-serving statements that should not be allowed before the jury except as corroboration of her own testimony.

“That is exactly why I want to have it introduced,” Jacobson countered.

The judge asked the attorneys to approach the bench. When they did, he turned to Jacobson.

“Is it your purpose to offer the defendant as witness?”

“Absolutely.”

“I think from that the doctor, without any special instructions, may go ahead, Mr. Britt,” McKinnon said.

The jury returned, and Douglas told them about his interview with Velma. She had indicated that for many years she’d had a nervous condition that included anxiety, depression, difficulty sleeping and headaches, he said, and she blamed it on her husband’s drinking.

When he asked about Stuart Taylor, he said, she admitted that she had given him poison.

“She indicated that they had had an argument and that he had been drinking and that he had threatened her, and then she said, ‘I thought it would make him sick but not kill him.’”

Asked his diagnosis, Douglas replied that he thought Velma was depressed, which was appropriate to the circumstance in which she found herself. He also concluded that she had a passive-dependent personality disorder and a history of multiple drug abuse.

Asked to define a passive-dependent personality disorder, Douglas replied, “They tend to cope very poorly with stress, and frequently are dependent upon drugs.”

Britt went straight to the point on cross-examination:

“You don’t consider this woman to be mentally ill, do you, Doctor?”

“No, sir, I don’t.”

Britt read several passages from Douglas’ report. “‘No evidence of illusions or hallucinations. Memory is intact. Her judgment is immature. Intellectual function at least average. This patient is considered competent to stand trial and to participate in her defense. There is no evidence to suggest the patient was mentally ill at the time of the alleged crime, and it is felt that the patient was able to distinguish between right and wrong at that time.’”

Had he written all of this? Britt asked.

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Doctor. No further questions.”

Next, Jacobson called Dr. R. E. Hooks of St. Pauls, who had been a general practitioner for thirty years and had treated Velma since 1966. He had last examined her on October 18, 1977, he said, three and a half months before Stuart’s death, treating her for nervousness and headaches.

“What did you prescribe for her?” Jacobson asked.

“Valium, five milligrams, four times a day. No refills.”

“Did she return?”

Monthly, he acknowledged, and each time he gave her a new prescription.

“And each time you put ‘no refill’ on this bottle?”

“Yes.”

“Was there a particular reason for that?”

“Yes. I had had trouble in the past with her taking too much medication and having prescriptions filled at more than one place.”

Was he aware that she was seeing other doctors and getting other prescriptions during this time?

“I was led to believe that she was not. I was aware that she had been under the care of other doctors in the past.”

Jacobson named some of the other drugs Velma was taking, including the sedative antidepressants Sinequan and Elavil, the sleeping pill Dalmane and the tranquilizer Tranxene.

“Had you known she was being treated with these other drugs, would you have prescribed for her the Valium that you did?”

“No, sir.”

“If you had known that Dr. Alexander was also prescribing Valium, would you have prescribed it?”

“No, sir.”

“Had the family members of Mrs. Barfield ever approached you about her problems?”

“Yes, they did.”

“Could you say who?”

“I think it was her son that talked to me.”

“Do you recall the substance of the conversation?”

“I believe that dates back several years when she was having kidney colic, or supposedly kidney colic. There was quite a bit of late-night shots I was giving her, and it reached the point where you could not determine if it was the kidney colic or a nervous problem, and I think that is the discussion that I had with her son.”

On cross-examination, Britt inquired about the reason Hooks had Velma coming back month after month.

“You were rationing the medication, is that what you were saying?”

“Right.”

“Would someone become intoxicated taking Valium according to prescription?”

“No, sir, not that alone.”

“What if they had been taking that in combination with other medication?” Jacobson asked on redirect.

“You could have any state from slightly intoxicated to a coma, depending on the dosage,” Hooks replied.

When Hooks had stepped down, Jacobson called the witness most people in the courtroom were waiting to hear, but none more so than Joe Freeman Britt.

“Mrs. Barfield, would you please take the stand?”

14

Bob Jacobson felt he had no choice but to have Velma testify. He had two hopes to save her life. First was to win a conviction for second-degree murder. From the beginning Velma had unwaveringly maintained that she never intended to kill anybody, only to make her victims sick. Even if that seemed irrational, he needed her to tell it to the jurors. Intent was a necessary element of first-degree murder. If he could get the jury to believe that it was never there, they could only find her guilty of second-degree, and the maximum penalty for that was life.

If that failed, his other chance was to persuade the jury that Velma’s long history of drug abuse had left her unable to comprehend that she was committing a crime when she gave Stuart poison. That might also win a verdict of second-degree, and even if it didn’t it still would be a strong mitigating factor for the sentencing phase. Velma could be a powerful voice in her own defense, confirming her drug problem and relating the reasons behind it.

Jacobson was well aware, however, that calling her could be dangerous. From the beginning she had been testy, argumentative and uncooperative, and that was a side of her that he didn’t want the jury to see. He had mentioned this to Ronnie, who talked with his mother about it. But she didn’t understand the legal system, was angry and resentful about her situation. She didn’t like Jacobson either, didn’t think he was doing enough.

“I think he’s doing the best he can,” Ronnie said. After all, he hadn’t exactly been handed an easy case, and the court had denied him any assistance. “He’s all you’ve got, and you’ve got to do everything you can to help him.”

Jacobson asked Ronnie about putting Velma on the stand, and he agreed it was necessary, even though he worried that Britt might tear her apart.

“Your appearance, the way you conduct yourself, is going to be of utmost importance,” Ronnie told her. “It could be the difference between life and death.”

Both Ronnie and Jacobson counseled her on how to act. She had to control her anger, be remorseful and polite, answer only what was asked, keep her hands in her lap.

Jacobson wanted her to look as grandmotherly and sympathetic as possible. “If you feel like crying,” he told her, “by all means cry.” He was hoping that she would.

Pam had picked a beige dress with a broad collar and puffed sleeves for her mother to wear on the stand, and because Velma was worried about dry mouth, she had given her gum.

When Jacobson called her Thursday afternoon, Velma walked heavily to the gray vinyl-covered chair in the witness box. She seemed calm and in control, but Ronnie knew that she was frightened.

“You are the defendant in this case, are you not?” Jacobson asked.

“Yes, sir,” she said meekly.

“And when did you meet Stuart Taylor?”

“In September 1976.”

Guided by Jacobson, Velma told how she had been introduced to Stuart by his aunt, how they had gone out for a while, stopped, then resumed months later. She spoke softly at first but seemed to gain confidence as she went on. She said Stuart had a problem with alcohol and wouldn’t come around while he was drinking.

“On the weekend prior to the death, what had you and Mr. Taylor been doing?” Jacobson asked.

“Well, we had an argument. He was drinking and we had had an argument, and I would threaten him, you know, to come back to Lumberton, and this is when, every time he would always say, ‘If you leave, the law will pick you up,’ due to this forged check.”

“Had you forged a check on him?”

She had, she admitted. She went on to tell about her breast surgery and Stuart taking her back to the doctor on Tuesday. Afterward, they’d stopped at Eckerd’s to get her prescription, she said, and she had bought the poison while Stuart was looking at fishing tackle.

“Why did you purchase the Terro?”

“Well, I thought it would make him sick.”

“But you intended to give it to him?”

“Yes, I did.”

When they got home, she said, she put the Terro on a table on the back porch where Stuart kept pesticides.

“Tell me what you did with it.”

“Well, on Tuesday afternoon he came in and he had been drinking, and when he went to the bathroom, I put some in his beer. It was approximately three-thirty, and then about six, I would say, at supper, I put some in the tea.”

“What happened then?”

They went to Fayetteville to a revival meeting, she said, and he got sick when they returned. Later she called Bill Storms and told him that Stuart was sick and didn’t want to go to a doctor. Soon afterward, Alice called, and she promised to keep her informed about her daddy’s condition. Stuart remained sick all day Wednesday, she noted.

“He still was not any better Thursday morning so he finally gave in to go to the doctor, but he said, ‘I cannot sit up to go to Lumberton,’ and I said, ‘Well, there’s means of getting you there rather than having to sit up.’”

She called for an ambulance and followed in Stuart’s truck, she said.

“Did you tell the hospital people what you had done?”

“No. sir, I did not.”

“Why not?”

“Because I was afraid.”

“What were you afraid of?”

“Well, I was afraid of what they might do.”

“Might do to who?”

“To me.”

Jacobson led her to the day of Stuart’s death, and she said that he was feeling better that morning, although he developed diarrhea and continued vomiting in the afternoon. “About seven o’clock he got up off the bed, and when he did, he fell on the floor, so I put some chairs there to keep him, you know, from getting off again. And a little later he tried again, and he just fell backwards, so then I ran to the phone and called K. K. Daniels, who was a neighbor, and asked him would he summons for some help, the rescue squad, whatever would be quick.”

“What happened at the hospital?”

“I got there as they were taking him in, and I went on into the room with him, and they were asking me, you know, had he been drinking and had he taken an overdose of medicine, and these things. And I told them no, he had not, so then they asked me out of the room. I called his daughter to tell her that I had Stuart at the hospital and he was under oxygen.”

Jacobson asked about her own medical problems, and she said that she had been seeing five different doctors in January and getting prescriptions from each. She was taking Sinequan, Elavil, Tranxene, Valium and Tylenol with codeine, she said, and doubling the doses.

“Did you ever run out of this medication?”

“No, sir, not going from one doctor to another. I never was out of it.”

“How long had you been taking medications like this?”

“I would say from six to ten years really.”

Jacobson then asked about John Henry Lee.

“This is very vague,” she answered. “I don’t remember very much about it. I had written a check on him, and I had put some of the roach poison in some cereal and coffee.”

She had forged the check, she said, to buy medicine.

Why had she poisoned Stuart? Jacobson asked.

“Same thing.”

“Tell me what happened with Mrs. Edwards.”

“I put some in her cereal and coffee, but there was nothing really between her and I.”

“Can you offer an explanation for it?”

“No, sir, I cannot. My mind was really fuzzy. I do not know. There was no reason.”