Death Sentence (35 page)

He denied all motions and set a new execution date: December 12, little more than two weeks away. But Velma’s lawyers soon would get another stay and embark on new appeals.

19

Ronnie fell into depression after his mother’s hearing, and his pessimism about her chances of escaping her death sentence was reinforced two months later when he picked up the Sunday
Fayetteville Observer-Times
and saw a full-page story headlined “On Death Row” by Tim Pittman.

Velma told Pittman that she had been depressed about the outcome of the hearing, but she refused to give in to it.

“When I begin to feel that way, I get up and start reading or writing letters,” she said. “I work with yarns. I keep myself busy. I refuse to be depressed. I think depression just invites defeat. I can’t afford to give in to doubts and fears right now.”

The story only fed Ronnie’s doubts and fears, though, for in it an unnamed lawyer summed up the situation much as he suspected it to be: “You’ve got to remember, this is a state that has yet to prove it will enforce its own new death penalty. This state needs to kill somebody. Because of the number of people she has confessed to killing, Velma Barfield is a likely choice.”

Oddly enough, such thoughts were far from Velma’s mind on the day this story appeared, for just the evening before she had received an assignment that was fully occupying her time and energies.

In October, while Velma was waiting for her hearing to begin, a bright and positive new force had come to Women’s Prison. Jennie Lancaster had become interested in prisons when she had taken a criminology course at Meredith College. An idealistic, self-styled “child of the sixties,” she was searching for a career in which she could help people. During her senior year, she got an internship at a youth center and decided that here was a place where her hope-filled attitude could be put to the service of good. After her graduation in 1972, she got a job as program director at Umstead Youth Center, where she would be the only female employee for the next eight years and in the beginning the only female in the Department of Correction with a college degree. When she was offered the job of assistant superintendent for treatment and programs at Women’s Prison, Lancaster leaped at it, although some warned her against it, for women’s prisons were then considered to be the backwater of corrections, a career killer. That Women’s Prison was looked down upon within the system was something that needed changing, Lancaster thought, and she was up to the challenge.

Contrary to accepted beliefs, Lancaster thought that correction officials had to become involved with inmates and their families if they hoped to make any genuine differences in their lives. She had made Velma’s acquaintance and taken an interest in her case soon after taking her new job (she even had read the transcript of her trial). She realized that Velma was doing good within the prison and could do even more. On the day before the story about Velma appeared in the Fayetteville paper, Lancaster had come to her cell and asked a favor. A fifteen-year-old girl had just arrived, convicted as an adult of being present at a murder and sentenced to thirty years. She was scared, confused, distraught. She was too young to be in the general population, where other inmates might take advantage of her youth, and Lancaster had no choice but to place her in lockup for her own well-being. Lancaster told Velma that she was going to put the girl in the cell next to hers. Would she talk to her, help her through this difficult time?

Her name was Beth, and later Velma said that as soon as she saw her, she knew that nobody would have had to ask for her help. Even if Beth had been involved in a murder, Velma realized immediately that this was just a lost child, and her heart went out to her.

At first she could not get through to her, because Beth lay on her bunk, sobbing uncontrollably. As she told the story later, Velma began to pray for the means, the strength to help this child, and she was moved simply to call out to her and put her hand through the bars toward the adjoining cell and hold it there. The girl grasped her hand with a desperation Velma never had felt.

“Is it okay if I pray for you?” Velma asked, and the girl agreed.

Afterward, they began to talk, and they continued into the night, both at times in tears, as Beth poured out her heart until both collapsed, exhausted, into restless sleep. Velma knew that a bond had formed between them that could not be broken.

In the weeks to come, as they learned more about each other, Velma began to think of Beth almost as a daughter. And Beth made no secret of her feelings. In prison, Velma was known by her first name, Margie. Beth would be only the first to call her Mama Margie.

Velma urged Beth to begin studying for her high school equivalency test, and she was pleased that she did. More important, Velma worried about Beth’s spiritual shortcomings. She introduced her to the Roanes, who took her into their hearts as well. Velma rejoiced when Beth started taking part in the Roanes’ Sunday services.

Jennie Lancaster had been trying to get Beth into a training school, a more appropriate setting, but under state law that had to happen before she turned sixteen. The order for her transfer came only hours before her birthday on April 16, and for the next two years the only contact between Velma and Beth would be by mail.

The effect Velma had on Beth came as no surprise to Lancaster. Velma was not just a model prisoner; she had an encouraging influence on other inmates. She always referred to them as “ladies,” and she treated all with equal respect. She was always open to any who sought her out, and although she was eager to share the joy and peace she claimed to have found in religion, she did not push her beliefs on anybody. One by one, inmates in Dorm C came to talk about their troubles, to ask advice, to get her to write letters for them, to seek her prayers or her guidance in their own religious quests.

During this time, Velma continued the course of self-discovery and healing on which her minister, Hugh Hoyle, had started her and, by the spring of 1981, they were on the subject of forgiveness. Velma was learning to forgive all whom she had perceived to have done her wrong in her life.

But she was still having trouble forgiving herself. To do that, she needed forgiveness from others. She and Hoyle had lengthy talks about it. And he urged her to seek forgiveness from those from whom she most wanted it: her family and the families of her victims.

She had never apologized to her family, never mentioned her crimes to them. And none of her family, not even Ronnie and Pam, had ever asked about them. The subject simply was too painful and awkward. They talked about anything and everything else, always carefully avoiding the one issue that most troubled them—the need to resolve Lillie’s death. Velma recognized it even if she couldn’t bring herself to talk about it.

By this time she had reached her own resolution with her mother. It had been a very real, face-to-face experience, as she later described it. Her mother had come to her in a dream so vivid that when she awakened she still felt her presence in the cell. Velma had begun crying, begging forgiveness. Soon a sense of peace and comfort came over her, a feeling not unlike the one she had gotten as a child when her mother had gone from bed to bed each night to check on all the children, to kiss their foreheads and tuck their covers, before she could find peace in sleep. Velma knew then that her mother had forgiven her. And she wanted the rest of her family to do the same.

Hoyle suggested that she write to her family, as well as to the families of the other victims, asking forgiveness. Two years earlier, Velma had written to Alice Storms offering apologies, but she had received no response, so she had no idea what reaction such letters might bring. She intended to go ahead until she mentioned the plan to Jimmie Little, but he quickly ended it. He wanted her making no admissions to anybody as long as she had a chance for a new trial or sentencing hearing.

Her need for absolution frustrated, Velma still wanted to set down her feelings so that at some point they could be known, and she and Hoyle came up with a compromise.

On May 27, 1981, she wrote two letters addressed to Hoyle, instructing him that, in the event of her death, he was to read one to her family, the other to the Edwards, Lee and Taylor families (she didn’t mention the Barfield family).

“God has convinced me of how wrong my acts were, how I have wronged each of you, so now I come to you asking you to forgive me,” she wrote. “I know He has forgiven me and my heart’s desire is that you will forgive me. My prayer is that God will bless each one of you real good each day of your life.”

She said the same in the letter to her own family, adding, “Please tell them that I have lifted them up before the throne of grace each day—and as I lifted them up, my prayer was if there was one among them unsaved that they would be saved. I love them dearly.”

Hoyle promised that he would see that her wishes were carried out and put the letters in his files.

In the meantime, Ronnie was now working three jobs. He was employed full-time as a cost accountant by a manufacturing plant in Clio, South Carolina. On weekends, he helped a certified public accountant. And three nights a week he taught business classes for four hours at Robeson Tech.

Ronnie and Joanna had moved from the apartment off Snake Road where they had been living when Velma was arrested and tried. Pam and Kirby and their two daughters had taken that apartment. Ronnie, Joanna and Michael had moved to Laurinburg, where, after living in an apartment for six months, they had bought a three-bedroom, two-bath brick house in Country Club Estates. Joanna was working in the office at a construction company, and it took all the money both could make just to meet their bills.

Calm by nature, Ronnie prided himself on his ability to maintain control. But for several years he had felt on edge, tense, nervous, easily irritated. He seemed never to be able to relax, and he had trouble sleeping.

Worry about his mother, stress from striving and overwork were all part of the problem, Ronnie knew. But his marriage also played a role. It had become highly volatile, with lots of bickering, accusing, yelling, storming out. Clearly it was disintegrating.

Before the move to Laurinburg, Joanna had told Ronnie that she wanted a divorce, but she had later changed her mind. They always found the same reason for working things out and staying together. His name was Michael—he was now five—and neither thought that they could get along without him.

Buying the house had been one of their attempts to improve the marriage, but like all of their efforts it had turned out to be a temporary and inadequate fix. The strain was ever present, the anger and bitterness just under the surface waiting to erupt. Many times during their frequent arguments Ronnie was reminded that this was how it had been with his parents.

Ronnie’s depressions usually vanished with time, but the one that set in after his mother’s hearing continued and grew, compounding with his anxiety until the tension was more than he could bear. He went to a doctor seeking relief and was prescribed Valium, which seemed to work at first. It made him less tense and irritable. He could sleep better.

But after a couple of months he began having headaches so severe that they disabled him. He returned to the doctor, who gave him Tylenol with codeine. The pain tablets not only relieved the headaches, but combined with the Valium, Ronnie discovered, they allowed him to sleep even better.

As time went on, however, neither seemed to help as much as they had in the beginning, and he began taking more than had been prescribed. By the spring of 1981, he found that he was having to take more and more just to stay on an even keel.

He didn’t tell his mother about this, nor did he let her know about any of his problems. He didn’t want her worrying. She had enough on her mind.

By the fall of 1981, Ronnie had lost twenty pounds and he had taken on such a gaunt and haunted look that he didn’t want his mother to see him. He felt bad all the time, and he frequently took several Valium and Tylenol with codeine at a time. He knew that he couldn’t go on that way, that he was heading down the same path that had led his mother to disaster. Something had to change. He had to give up the drugs, but he knew, too, that they were simply a symptom of deeper problems.

His worry about his mother had grown with each setback in her appeals. And the problems in his marriage were worse. He frequently slept on the sofa, and he and Joanna barely talked. The conversations they had often degenerated into fights.

One night Ronnie became upset because Joanna kept finding fault with Michael. “You need to stop fussing at him, or he and I are going to leave,” he told her.

“You’re not taking him anywhere,” she snapped.

When he tried to get Michael, she grabbed him first, and they found themselves in a tugging and screaming match that ended when Ronnie slammed his fist through the Sheetrock wall.

Not long after that, Joanna followed him into the bathroom, yelling during an argument. “Stop it!” he shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Stop it now!” She tried to jerk away and fell backward into the fiberglass tub, striking with such force that her elbow knocked a hole in it. Sobered, Ronnie tried to help her up, saying, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that,” but she grabbed a handy canister, sprayed him in the face and stormed out.

Both were miserable, and they knew that they could not continue like that. Both could see that the strife and misery were affecting Michael, who was becoming fearful and withdrawn.